Officials to kill thousands of camels in Australia as they drink too much water amid wildfires

[left-of-center2012]

Officials will kill thousands of camels in Australia as they drink too much water amid the wildfires.

Leaders in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in northwest Australia will send helicopters to kill up to 10,000 camels in a five-day campaign starting Wednesday, The Australian reported. The order to kill comes as a drought makes the camels more desperate for water, causing chaos in local communities.

The State Department for Environment and Water will send the helicopters up. The camels’ bodies will be burnt or buried if they are accessible, but in remote areas, their bodies will be left.

The National Feral Camel Management Plan estimated about one million camels lived in three states and the Northern territory in 2010, according to the newspaper.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/477058-officials-to-kill-thousands-of-camels-in-australia-as-they-drink

[Coventina]

1. I fucking hate my species.

I hope we go extinct. I really do.
I'm just sorry we're causing so much suffering in the process.

And before someone snarkily asks why I'm waiting: I'm not.
I'm planning my end to be soon.

[LuckyCharms]

15. Are you ill, Coventina?

[Coventina]

22. I have several hereditary chronic illnesses/conditions.

Both my mother and father were seriously genetically flawed (in different ways), but such issues were not very well known at the time they were reproducing.

[LuckyCharms]

30. I'm sorry to hear this. Your post caught my eye.

I'm trying to live with several chronic illnesses at once, however, I won't say that I know how you feel, because I don't. However, I do understand how seriously overwhelming it can get with health problems and/or issues with your mind and body.

I try to use humor to get me through. I hope that you have a coping mechanism and a support system. I have the former, not so much on the latter.

What I will say to you here is...I wish for you the strength to manage your challenges. I wish for you to always find joy. I wish for you not to be hard on yourself. I wish for you to look upon yourself with pride. I wish for you to know that you do not need to be perfect in the eyes of others. I wish for you to feel accomplishment in dealing with your struggles.

[Coventina]

35. Thank you, LC. That is incredibly kind of you.

There are good humans, and you are one of them.


The sad part is, the older I get, the more I realize that there are so many more bad people than good people.
The worst part is, most people who are bad think they are good people. (And I include myself in that, for most of my life).
They go along, selfishly making choices that have horrible impact on the environment and their fellow creatures; (humans and other species).

When confronted by the evidence of their behavior they excuse, ignore, or get angry, showing their true colors.

As a species, I do sincerely believe we are headed for extinction, due to the catastrophic damage we are doing to our ecosystem.
Maybe a few of us will survive. Maybe they will learn from our mistakes. If not, we deserve to be extinct.

I would be totally at peace with this, except that we're taking so many other innocent species with us.

Anyway, for now, I have a 97 year old grandmother who needs my help, so I'm sticking around for her. After she goes.....
I'll re-evaluate my existence and see, but right now.....let's just say I don't see a lot of reason to stick around.
This story with its petty cruelty perpetrated by human greed, idiocy, and neglect just really brought the whole issue into focus for me.

Thanks again, and I wish every good back at you!

[LuckyCharms]

38. There will be another reason to stick around

after your grandmother passes.

A reason will show itself.

I was caretaker for my mom when she passed at 94.

Afterwards, I found a lot of reasons to keep up the fight.

The reasons don't always become apparent right away, but they usually show themselves when you need them to.

Stick around.

Edit: Thank you for your good wishes as well.

[UniteFightBack]

2. Jesus fucking CHRIST. nt

[MontanaMama]

3. Jesus. This is nauseating. eom.

[Bayard]

4. Why single out just one species?

I bet people are drinking a lot more water than the camels.

Jesus Pete, what a screw up.

[Coventina]

5. excellent point!

[Bayard]

6. I haven't seen anything about how many swimming pools there are in Australia either.

[Demonaut]

7. do you live in Oz?, invasive species can be terrible, look at the pythons in the everglades

innocent they are but at what cost is their innocence

[Coventina]

13. human created problem, and we take the easy, cruel way out

we suck

[Demonaut]

20. which method would be more humane?

[Coventina]

24. There are several ways that wildlife reproduction can be managed.

If this has been such a long-standing problem, why haven't measures been taken to reduce their numbers by reducing their offspring?

[Recursion]

21. Because invasive species are a problem to begin with?

It's not like this is some native Alaskan marsupial camel population they have been keeping under wraps. These are the feral descendants of Camel Corps camels from WWI.

[Coventina]

25. Human created problem, for which humans didn't take responsibility. We suck. n/t

[Demovictory9]

8. sad!!!

[NCProgressive]

9. We have lost all compassion

Very sad to read this

[Hortensis]

34. Nonsensical gratuitous insult to others. Even the people whose fences

and windows are being smashed by wild camels desperate for water haven't lost all compassion.

It's honest and responsible to speak for yourself, of course: "I've lost all compassion."

[Benny cat]

10. Why not ship them to other countries?

Sad.

[New Leaf]

43. Exactly!

This is so horrible😿

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Just a reminder -- CAMELS ARE NOT NATIVE TO AUSTRALIA !!

These are an invasive species -- placental mammals on an isolated continent home to most of the world's marsupials, many of them endangered.

I suspect Aussies have been culling them on a regular basis, just as they have culled rats and rabbits, for much the same reason. In a less urgent situation, they might even harvest the meat.

Sad for the animals, of course, but you can't ship thousands of camels out to zoos, and since they're wild -- untamed -- they're no good as pack animals or mounts. They shouldn't have been allowed to escape and breed, but too late now.

PS: Camels are BIG animals, up to 1300 lbs. for Dromedaries and 2000 lbs. for Bactrians, and while they are famous for their ability to do without water for extended periods, they drink plenty when it is available -- various sources say 20, 30, even 53 gallons in a matter of minutes. I would think wild camels would be as much a problem in Oz as wild pigs are in this country. Why do you think there is such a thing as a "National Feral Camel Management Plan", and why was it recording a census of camels nine years ago ?? BTW, camels can eat almost any type of vegetation, including some inedible by any other species. Allowed to breed unchecked, they can strip vegetation that other species rely on to survive. Aussies know what they're doing here, however unpleasant it may be.

[Coventina]

12. Again, human created problem. But we take the easy, and cruel way out.

we have no excuse for this.

[Codeine]

16. The Aboriginal government that manages the region

is dealing with a problem they didn’t create. This area is remote, vast, and very sparsely populated. I’m not convinced they have a reasonable alternative.

[Coventina]

19. Then, Australia's white government sucks harder. But humans still suck. n/t

[HAB911]

18. yeah, like domestic cats around here

[GusBob]

23. With all due respect

There is a drought of common sense around here.
One must have a visceral knee-jerk outrage of a reaction without knowing the facts of the matter or the situation on the ground.

One must at all times point the finger of outrageous indignation and blame at the folks who have lived with this delicate problem for decades. One must hate them more than the problem.

One must read the headlines only and react only in a way that does not lend any effort to a solution

And then one must forget all about it when the next poutrage pops up

My apologies

[Coventina]

26. Drought of common sense such as bringing a large invasive species in the first place, then releasing

it and not dealing with it until a crisis.

Yep. Humans are MODELS of common sense.

[LuckyCharms]

14. Dystopia. n/t

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. They've been culling camels for years. The camels are invasive and wreak havoc on native wildlife.

[Coventina]

27. And how did they get there? n/t

[MrsCoffee]

29. Imported from British India and Afghanistan during the 19th century.

Used for transport and construction during colonization. Released into the wild when motorized vehicles came along.

[Coventina]

31. Yes, my point exactly. A human problem, and now cruelly treated by humans.

Humans are horrible.

[Throck]

32. Invasive Species in Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_species_in_Australia

I always knew about the rabbit problem, not the camels.

[Coventina]

36. As I've posted before, a human-created problem, compounded by human idiocy, neglect, and cruelty

We suck as a species.

We are a nightmare to our fellow creatures.

[Phoenix61]

41. I get your point but watching them die

from dehydration doesn’t seem very humane either.

[Coventina]

42. No, it isn't. Nothing humans do is normally humane.

The humane thing to do would have been to not bring camels into Australia in the first place.

But, humans have a long tradition of idiocy and cruelty.

"Humane" and "human" have little to do with each other, even though semantically they are related.

[sinkingfeeling]

28. Horrible!

[Throck]

33. I wonder if they can be used at a food bank?

In the US deer are regularly processed and get donated to food banks and soup kitchens. Why not camels? Seems a waste to let them rot.

[Submariner]

39. It would probably be the right thing to do

to bring in a group of skilled meat butchers to carve the carcass into portions that can get into refrigerated trucks ASAP.

The Aussies just don't seem to have the money, equipment and manpower for such an operation during this high-heat, drought and forest fire season in that huge remote area where the camels are hanging out. You're right it is such a waste.

The people that would normally come to the defense of the feral camel are probably absorbed in trying to save koalas and roos right now.

[Codeine]

44. Pretty much the definition of

the middle of nowhere. Locating, collecting, transporting, and processing the carcasses from such a remote area would probably be just about impossible, and certainly not economically feasible for some meat that’s most likely undesired anyway.

[Hortensis]

37. The headline lies. It's NOT that camels are drinking too much water,

it's that they're overrunning and even breaking into people's properties desperate to get at the water there.

[Beringia]

40. The article doesn't even mention how many camels have died from wildfires

It says there were 1 million in 2010. They are planning to kill 10,000. What about the rest?