Camels are large mammals born tens of millions of years ago, and over the course of their evolution, camels have gradually differentiated into two different types: dromedary and Bactrian camels. The dromedary has one hump and the Bactrian has two.
The camel is resistant to both heat and cold, mainly thanks to its fur. The camel's fur reflects sunlight and insulates it from outside heat, and it sweats only in temperatures above 41 degrees Celsius. On cold nights, the camel's thick fur conserves body temperature to the maximum, and at night, the camel's body temperature is maintained at 34 degrees Celsius.
Camels are naturally hungry and thirsty, which is mainly related to its body structure. As herbivores, camels eat plants in large quantities in summer and autumn, eating up to 33 kilograms of food per day. It doesn't eat all of this food for digestion, but converts some of it into fat, which is stored in the hump and abdominal cavity. When there is a shortage of food in winter, even if it does not eat for ten days and a half a month, the camel will not starve to death, because its hump and fat stored in the abdominal cavity can be converted into energy to maintain the normal functioning of the body. Not only that, camels are also able to reduce the metabolic level of the body by being quiet.
The camel is a walking "big tank" that can drink more than 100 liters of water at a time, enough water to last it for a week or two. In addition, there are many extremely thin and tortuous pipes in the nostrils of camels, and when the body is short of water, these pipes will immediately stop secreting fluid, and form a layer of crust on the surface of the pipe, which is used to absorb the exhaled water without being lost to the body, and when inhaled, the water in the crusty can be sent back to the body.
Camels were tall and robust, resistant to cold and heat, hunger and thirst, and were soon discovered by humans. As a result, camels became domesticated livestock by humans very early. After being domesticated, camels gradually became an indispensable means of transportation for humans to carry goods in the desert. In fact, it is perfectly adapted to the harsh desert environment and is known as the "Ship of the Desert".
After entering the twentieth century, with the popularization of modern means of transportation such as cars and airplanes, the role of camels in desert transportation gradually weakened, and the scale of captive camels raised around the world has also decreased significantly. Wild camels are facing a serious threat of environmental degradation, and their numbers are decreasing, especially wild Bactrian camels, which only have more than 800 peaks in the world.
However, there is one exception, which is Australia, known as the "paradise of alien species", because this land is already flooded with camels!
When people think of invasive alien species in Australia, the first thing that comes to mind is the 10 billion hares flooded. In addition, millions of goats are at ease in Australia, which is a headache for the locals.
Compared to hares and goats, camels are larger, so they eat more and drink more water. At the end of the eighteenth century, the British entered the Australian continent, and in order to explore the continent more conveniently, the British imported 20,000 dromedary camels from Asia, mainly for long-distance transportation.
These 20,000 camels contributed to the British "exploration" of the Australian continent. After the twentieth century, all kinds of cars gradually replaced camels and began to take on the work of long-distance transportation. Abandoned camels went into the wild in large numbers and began to grow wildly.
Many people think that Australia is surrounded by the sea and the climate should be relatively humid. But in fact, in addition to the coastal areas with relatively sufficient precipitation, other inland areas in Australia are relatively arid, and the terrain is mainly grassland and desert.
The released camels walked into the deserted Australian desert as if entering a paradise, where they lived and thrived freely, soon numbering 1.2 million.
These 1.2 million camels have eaten almost all the green vegetation in the desert, even the thorny cactus, and the already fragile desert ecology has been severely damaged. They gnawed the desert and continued to gnaw the grassland, making large areas of grassland desertification.
Camels drink so much water that they drink when they see small puddles, draining the natural water of the desert steppe for decades, forcing other animals to migrate to coastal areas.
The territory of camels is getting bigger and bigger, the territory of humans is getting smaller and smaller, and the intensification of the contradiction between human camels suddenly annoys the Australians, who are determined to destroy these camels.
However, it is not easy to eliminate so many camels. Australia's 1.2 million camels may seem massive in size, but they are scattered across vast desert grasslands like needles in a haystack, making them difficult for hunters to find. Therefore, it is very inefficient to hunt at first.
Later, the clever Australians came up with a clever trick. They took advantage of the camels' social nature to plant spies in the herd.
First, they caught some live camels and put a collar around their necks. The marked camels are then released into the wild, where they soon join other herds. Finally, hunters accurately track and locate the herd through a locator on the camel's collar, enabling a precise "strike".
The trick worked, and the hunters killed 10,000 camels in five days.
However, the Australian camel hunt soon drew fierce opposition and protests from environmental groups. Under increasing public pressure, locals have had to turn to more conservative governance strategies.
There are still more than 1 million dromedaries in Australia, and their size is growing.