Last week, the world read devastating reports that a half-billion animals have died due to the Australian bush fires. Now, drought conditions have become so dire that the country has made the difficult decision to cull wildlife even further in an effort to conserve resources.
Beginning this week, professional snipers will take to helicopters to hunt 4,000 to 5,000 camels in South Australia's remote northwest, adjacent to the wildfires that have raged since September in New South Wales, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or the ABC, reports. A recent feral-camel-population boom is exacerbating the need for water, threatening damage to infrastructure and putting communities in Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, an Aboriginal district, at risk, according to South Australia's Department for Environment and Water.
A DEW spokesperson said they've put their full support behind the plan, claiming the animals "will be destroyed in accordance with the highest standards of animal welfare."
Environmental officials estimate that 10,000 camels are migrating into the region, where the animal is considered an invasive pest, in search of any available water sources. The dromedary can drink up to 30 gallons of water at a time, according to National Geographic.
Their insatiable thirst is creating a scenario that will make it easier for land-conservationists to curb the recent population boom.
"It gives us an opportunity to get them while they're all together, because generally they'll go and move around the desert in smaller herds," said APY official Richard King. "So while they're all together, it's a great time to have a cull and clean out some of the animals that are destroying some of our native vegetation."
According to King, camels can smell water from more than 3 miles away.
Feral camels on a sand dune in central-west Queensland, Australia.Universal Images Group via Getty "Even the moisture that your air conditioner generates will attract them, and when you've got four or five animals really wanting water — they're quite capable of breaking air conditioners," he told the ABC. "Some people, in this sort of weather, are unable to put their air conditioners on, for fear that the animals are going to attack their air conditioners for their moisture."
The DEW noted that camels who do not survive the extreme arid conditions also put locals at risk.
"In some cases, dead camels have contaminated important water sources and cultural sites," the spokesperson said.
King notes that carcasses left during the mass cull will be burnt within a couple weeks, "just to finalize it all, bring them all into one spot, burn and return the ash into the soil."
Ordinarily, the desert's camel population is controlled by APY land owners who would gather and sell them, but recently they've been "unable to manage the scale and number of camels that congregate in dry conditions," said the DEW.
King estimates it will take at least three years to bring the camel population down to sustainable numbers.
"And in that time we've got to feed them . . . The reality is, we just can't do that," he said.
This is just the beginning, he added: "It will definitely have an impact and it will provide some breathing space, but this cull will be the first of a few."
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