Feral camels

National plan sought to manage camel population:

"A senior scientist with the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission says a national strategy is urgently needed to manage the growing camel population in Australia.

Dr Glenn Edwards estimates there are 700,000 feral camels in Australia and says the number will double in eight years if the population continues to grow unchecked."

We all know we have camels but we don't actually think about them and it wouldn't really occur to us they are thriving in Australia. I was listening to a discussion on the radio today about our feral camel problem . Apparently we do have too many. Apparently they are extremely healthy. Apparaently we are going to do what seems to be our standard knee jerk reaction to excess animals..cull them. Usually that means shooting them. Australians don't like to admit it, but they are hunter gatherers by nature many of them. Lots of people like Roo and rabbit shooting and like to bring it home for food. It's not spoken about these days. Things do go and grow wild in Australia and it is a problem for farmers and our land. Flora and fauna just blossom and burgeon. I have talked about this a lot and I have also spoken about how inventive and practical our biodiversity experts are when they are consulted. They always come up with a set of sound solutions when they are used. The person speaking about the camels was talking about how our healthy camels could be used to strengthen the overseas camels . We can get problems with dogs and cats here because we don't get enough new blood, well, apparently overseas camels are not getting enough new breeding blood. How would we safely ship ours overseas? Heaven knows. Could we ? Should we? Are there countries which need our extra healthy camels? As I listened to the speaker I was given to understand we could solve this problem. ..so yes, let's have a national plan and one for the Koalas, too , please.