Guest Editorial: Managing The Impacts Of Feral Camels

One-humped dromedary camels (Camelus dromedarius) were first introduced to Australia in 1840 from the Canary Islands. Thereafter the majority came from the Indian subcontinent (McKnight 1969) and were used to open up the arid interior for European settlement (McKnight 1969). Camels were well suited to working in remote dry areas and were used as a means of transport, for freight and as draught animals (McKnight 1969). It is thought that over a 27-year period between 1880 and 1907 approximately 20 000 camels were imported. It was at least 40 years after the first importation that quarantine regulations were developed and enforced; it is probably simply fortuitous that the common camel diseases found in the Middle East and south Asia are not present in Australian camels today. The replacement of the camel by the motor vehicle as a mode of transport in the early 20th century resulted in large numbers of camels being released into the wild and the subsequent establishment of a feral population. Records show that the number of captive camels registered in 1941 was 2300, compared with 12 649 in 1920 (McKnight 1969). There is no reliable estimate of the number of camels that were released into the wild, although it is thought that it may have been between 5000 and 10 000 camels (Edwards et al. 2004). Although there had been several attempts to estimate the number of camels in Australia between the mid 1960s and 2000, it was not until 2001 that it became apparent that camels were an emerging pest animal problem in Australia. Survey work undertaken in the Northern Territory in 2001 indicated that there were possibly asmany as 300 000 feral camels inAustralia spread across WA, SA, the NT and Queensland and that the population was doubling about every 8 years (Edwards et al. 2004). For the best part of 75 years, the significant damage that feral camels were doing to the fragile ecosystems, cultural sites, isolated communities and pastoral enterprises of desert Australia were largely ‘out of sight – out of mind’ for most Australians because it occurred in sparsely populated areas a long way from the coast. Theywere only noticedwhen their activities intersected with remote Aboriginal people, pastoralists and the tourism and mining industries. Recent incursions into remote Aboriginal communities (in 2007 and 2009) are possibly the first indication that feral camels have reached a population that is causing them stress in their natural environment. In June 2005 the Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (DKCRC) obtained funding from the Australian Government’s Natural Heritage Trust Fund for the research project ‘Cross-jurisdictional management of feral camels to protect NRM and cultural values’. The overarching aim of the research was to develop a national management framework that would lead to a reduction in camel numbers to a level that reversed their population growth trajectory and reduced their impacts on natural resource management (NRM), economic and social– cultural values. This was a first attempt to develop an integrated management approach for a large herbivorous pest animal species at such a large scale in Australia. A key starting point for the development of a national management framework was the recognition that the management of the impacts of pest animals should be guided by a risk management approach and be strategic in determining where management should occur, at what time and what techniques should be used (Australian Pest Animal Strategy 2007). The then current management of feral camels was largely ad hoc (Edwards et al. 2004) and failed to adequatelymeet any of these criteria. The research project recognised the complexity of the problem by bringing together a collaboration among a cross-disciplinary group of researchers (ecology, toxicology, anthropology, sociology, economics, business management, law and systems modelling) and stakeholder groups which included government agencies, Aboriginal organisations and communities, individual pastoralists and conservation land managers across three States (WA, SA, Qld) and the NT. This research has resulted in the papers in this Special Issue which have been arranged around three themes: (i) demography and distribution; (ii) impacts and attitudes of land managers; and (iii) management and decision support.