AFP/Sydney
Australian authorities were preparing yesterday to round up with helicopters a 6,000-strong herd of wild camels terrorising a remote Outback community and shoot them dead in the desert.
Protracted drought had brought the camels into the Docker River township in search of water, leaving residents cowering in their homes as they smashed through water mains and invaded the airstrip, officials said.
“This is a plague of biblical proportions laying waste to a sensitive and arid environment,” said the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association chief Luke Bowen.
Local shire chief Graham Taylor said the thirsty creatures pose a real danger to residents, with fears they could resort to forcing their way into homes.
“I think the words ‘under siege’ are good words because it talks about people being stuck in their homes and looking out and seeing just numbers of camels at your front door,” he said.
Over the next week Taylor said regional authorities would use helicopters to muster the animals and drive them 15km out of the township, where they would be gunned down and left to decay where they fell.
Bowen said farmers were sick of the humped pests, which are estimated to number more than 1mn in the Northern Territory’s vast red-sand reaches.
“We have to have action, we have to have it now,” he said, calling for a Territory-wide culling plan.
The largest wild camel herd on earth, central Australia’s camels damage fragile desert ecosystems and water sources.
The camels, along with donkeys and horses, are also destroying re-vegetation projects in the desert communities by ripping up plants.
Camels were introduced into Australia as pack animals for the vast outback in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were released into the wild as rail and road travel became more widespread.
With few natural predators and vast sparsely-populated areas in which to roam, the feral animal population has soared, putting pressure on native species by reducing food sources, destroying habitat and spreading disease.
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