How was the problem of the Australian camel flood finally solved? In the magical land of Australia, it seems that any foreign creature can be flooded, such as tens of billions of hares, millions of wild dogs, countless stray cats, etc., and even huge camels can wreak havoc in the local area.
At the end of the 18th century, after British colonists set foot on the land of Australia, in order to better live here, they brought a variety of animals from Europe, including camels, to use as transportation in the hot and arid environment of Australia. One of the first camels to come to Australia was the mount of explorer Harrox, a dromedary named "Harry", who was brought to Australia around October 1840.
Since then, the British have successively transported large quantities of camels to Australia as a means of transportation. Data show that between 1870 and 1920, as many as 20,000 camels were transported to Australia in batches from the Arabian Peninsula, India and Afghanistan, followed by more than 2,000 camel hands who knew how to raise camels, so these camel hands and camels took root in Australia.
With the rise of the industrial revolution and the development of internal combustion engines, camels as a means of transportation have become very backward, the camel industry has declined, more and more people began to abandon camels, some camels came to the wild, and gradually adapted to the wild environment, became wild camels.
Camels are particularly viable, tolerant to drought, thirst and heat, and quickly adapted to the environment of the Australian tropical desert and formed a stable population size. A very important reason why exotic animals can flood in Australia is that there are no large beasts, outsiders are not suppressed by natural enemies, and if they can adapt to the local environment, they will soon flood.
This is the case with camels, which not only survive strongly, but also have no local predators to suppress the growth of camel numbers, so it didn't take long for camel numbers to reach alarming levels. By the 21st century, the number of camels in the wild in Australia reached a staggering 1.2 million, which caused serious damage to the local ecology.
Camels are large and eat an amazing amount of food, and will compete with local livestock for pasture resources; Herds of camels run and trodden on already semi-desert land, exacerbating desertification in the area; More importantly, camels have a huge demand for water, and they drink it whenever they see it, which makes the already arid areas even worse.
Not only that, some camels will also break into villages, directly compete with humans and livestock for water sources, take advantage of people's attention to drink the water originally prepared for livestock, and even some camels do not let go of the condensed water of air conditioning, which has a serious impact on the lives of local residents.
In addition, the huge camel population also increases carbon emissions, 1 million wild camels emit up to 1 ton of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to the annual emissions of 400,000 cars, which further aggravates the deterioration of the local climate environment and promotes land desertification.
In order to solve the problem caused by the flooding of camels, the local government began to try various methods to control the number of camels, they first encouraged the people to hunt camels, but the efficiency was too low, the number of hunting was not as fast as camels reproduced. Data shows that Australian camels are doubling every 9 years, but people hunting them won't help.
Later, poisoning was used to deal with camels, but poisoning in water sources also brought disaster to native animals, and poisoned wild camels in the wild will also pollute the environment, and even spread diseases, threatening people's health.
So how exactly is the problem of camel flooding in Australia solved? The answer is the Judas Collar. Judas was a traitor among the twelve disciples of Christianity, a traitor to Jesus who betrayed Jesus, so this "Judas collar" plan meant to plant spies.
Camels are social animals, they often haunt a dozen or even dozens of collectives, so the local hunting team came up with a way to catch a camel alive and put a collar around the camel's neck, that is, a tracking locator. The camel is then released into the wild, and when it is integrated into the group, hunters can easily find the herd and hunt them out.
Of course, hunters don't kill camels with "Judas collars." Having lost the herd, the spy camel will re-find and integrate into the other groups, and the hunting team will follow the "spy" and destroy the camel. The "Judas Collar" program solved the problem of difficulty in finding camels, greatly improved the efficiency of hunting camels, and played a great role in controlling the number of camels.
In the process of implementing the "Judas Collar" plan, another shocking thing happened was that a "spy" camel seemed to realize that he would bring disaster to the group, and when it encountered a group of camels in the vast desert, not only did not try to join the group, but turned and ran, and chose to live alone for a long time.
The camel's behavior was recorded by photographers and made into a documentary called The Judas Collar. As soon as the documentary was released, Australia's hunting of camels was criticized by many animal protection organizations and individuals, but it has to be said that Australia's hunting of camels is really helpless.
