FERAL BEASTSSelling Camels to the Arabs
INTERVIEW BY ROYCE AKERS
| The Australian Government's Current Feral Camel Management Program. |
Surprise, 1,000,000 camels are roaming the Australian desert. They’re the great, great grand-children of imported pack animals that helped build our rural power and rail networks. Set free at the advent of the petrol engine, those animals took to their new home with gusto. For the camel, Australia’s vast tracts of inhospitable wastelands turned out to be a smorgasbord of thistles, weeds and prickly acacias, food that native animals wouldn’t look twice at. Throw in their legendary ability to go for days without water and it’s no wonder they now outnumber koalas by 10 to 1.
Good for the camels right? Wrong. With the exception of white people, introduced species have a big stigma in Australia. Cane toads, European carp and feral pets have killed or out-competed many native animals. As if guilty by association, Australia’s camels are the focus of a large scale eradication project. Thousands are being tracked, shot, and left to rot in the middle of nowhere. Unlike kangaroo culling, camel eradication has barely raised an eyebrow. Even conservation groups seem to accept it as a measure to protect local species. The other way of looking at it however is as a total fucking waste of camel meat.
Paddy McHugh is a leading camel expert and exporter. We called him as he was preparing a load for Kuwait.
Vice: How’s the camel business, Paddy?
The market for the animal worldwide is unbelievable. Since Christmas time, I’ve had enquiries from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, as well as Malaysia and Taiwan. And that’s just the tip of it really. A few years ago, we had the Crown Prince of Dubai’s private plane fly out—we put 35 camels on it and it flew back.
Is there anything good about Australian camels in particular?
We’re the only country in the world with wild camels, and a very big population of them too. We have a good strain of camels, bigger, fatter and stronger than the ones from Pakistan, Somalia and places like that. Also, we’re a stable country and we can access them relatively easily. And I think the people overseas are struggling to find them. The Muslim world eats camel like we eat cattle and sheep.
| This is Paddy gazing at a prize winning beauty competition bull worth $4 million dollars. |
Do you eat it?
I eat it fairly regularly, if we’re mustering we may have some camel meat. I don’t kill the animals unnecessarily.
We’ve put a couple through the abattoirs and it’s lovely meat. You wouldn’t tell the difference. Fifteen years ago we had Mike Willisee and A Current Affair come up to film. We cooked up the same cuts of camel and beef, the cuts are very similar, and we cooked them up exactly the same way and we never told them what it was. They raved about it. It’s really beautiful. And then we told them.
The old blind test eh. What else is camel good for?
There are strange antibodies in the blood which they say could revolutionise a whole range of different cures.
The milk has the greatest potential though—it’s high in vitamin C and has all these funny little things which are great for immune deficiencies in children. In the Middle East, you can get camel milk off the supermarket shelf. They estimate that the camel dairy industry is worth $10 billion.
That much?
Well a camel alone sells for about $1,200 a head. Unfortunately the government sees the camel as a feral animal and doesn’t recognise the potential. They should be domesticated and farmed like cattle and sheep. We’re an arid land, in fact 70% of Australia’s land is classified as arid. Why aren’t we farming arid animals? Camels can be farmed alongside cows quite simply. The forage overlap is only about 20% and they’re easy to muster. You need slight modification to your yards and trucking, but otherwise it’s a piece of cake. If you look at our farming industry, camels could raise the bottom line by 20 or 30%. And we shoot them as a feral animal. I just think it’s a disgrace.
 Anonymous, on Sep 23, 2009 wrote:
people in africa don’t know how to cook Camel meat | | Anonymous, on Mar 13, 2009 wrote:
I ate camel once when I was in Africa. It was kind of tough, not very good. | | Anonymous, on Mar 13, 2009 wrote:
You mean there are only 100,000 Koalas now? Jesus that is sad. What happened? | | Anonymous, on Mar 13, 2009 wrote:
paddy looks just like my buddy’s dad but he has late-term parkinson’s and sits in a leather chair chainsmoking and responding to tv shows with the most quick-witted comebacks of all time. | | Anonymous, on Mar 12, 2009 wrote:
Anonymous, on Mar 11, 2009 wrote:
isn’t there camel racing in parts of the world? am i mistaken / just came up with the greatest idea ever?
Duh, where do you think the term ’camel jockey’ originated. | | Anonymous, on Mar 12, 2009 wrote:
damn i didn’t think it was possible to match a blue shirt with jeans. nice work there paddy. | | Anonymous, on Mar 12, 2009 wrote:
aw man those leg callouses are bumming me the fuck out. | | Anonymous, on Mar 11, 2009 wrote:
titty milk cupcakes, camel burgers, and human bbq. you guys should set up an alternative diner. | | Anonymous, on Mar 11, 2009 wrote:
isn’t there camel racing in parts of the world? am i mistaken / just came up with the greatest idea ever? | | Anonymous, on Mar 11, 2009 wrote:
1200 a head? How much for the rest of the camel? | |
| megabreath, on Mar 10, 2009 wrote:
there sure as shit weren’t camels at the petting zoos i went to. where were you, tunisia? | | Anonymous, on Mar 10, 2009 wrote:
camels are like some huge space beast from star wars. i once had one suck on my head- i was literally wearing it as a hat, with its foul drool dripping down m face at a petting zoo once. fuciing freaks | | Anonymous, on Mar 10, 2009 wrote:
The Crown Prince flew all the way to Oz to buy 35 camels? WTF kind of camel BBQ are they having? Maybe they have some weird camel butt fucking fetish? | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
You betches need to get on that shit. Australia could corner the camel dairy market. | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
Is that a camel Adam’s Apple? That would look rather odd if every swallow that lump moved all the way down his neck and then back up. | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
@ anonymous "Here’s an idea - take vitamin C! Wow!". seems that too much vitamin c can turn you into a sarcastic retard. | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
I went for a ride on a camel when i went to tunisia it was uncomfortable and the stand out memory was the camel in front of us would not stop shitting, worst 45 mins of my life. camels are dicks. | |
| joey carrera, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
definitely a shame to see these animals being wasted but I wonder how you’ll even begin to create a market in unreached areas for camel goods? sure camel meat may taste like beef and the milk may have vitamin c but i feel like it’s gonna be a long ways to go before the camel meets those masses (if at all). | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
So camel’s milk is better for you because it contains vitamin C? Here’s an idea - take vitamin C! Wow! I take a vitamin C chewable (de-lish) every morning. Sometimes I drink an Emergen-C on top of that. Camel’s milk is also going to be loading with fat and other things that AREN’T good for you along with that vitamin C. | |
| joe bananas, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
For an animal which according to this article has so many positive things going for it, I find it very hard to belive that the government wouldnt get involved with encouraging the growth of this market. With water being so important in oz doesnt a camel make sense? | |
| poozer, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
i remember ’a current affair.’ whatever happened to that show, cancelled i guess. the overly dramatic anchors were the best and the logo with the spinning pyramid was so cheesy it was awesome. you know what? i bet fox news started and took all their audience, no shit. | | Anonymous, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
"Imagine the bumper sticker - "My other car is a camel". I’m sold."
I want one for my camel’s ass that says "My other camel is a camel." Or maybe "My other camel is a Fiat." | |
| place kicker, on Mar 9, 2009 wrote:
four million for one camel? is that what arab rappers buy with their a-rab money? it would be tough to bling that guy out. no room for rims or spoilers. i guess you could get a really cool diamond encrusted stirrups. | | Anonymous, on Mar 8, 2009 wrote:
this article was real good | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
muslims have to slaughter them in a certain way? like kosher kind of? do tell. never heard of anything like that. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
We export live sheep from the port here. live stock ships could carry a shit load camels a trip. | | Anonymous, on Mar 6, 2009 wrote:
we used to go camel chasing when we were quiet at work. they smell rancid. I would recon he is onto something with its an arid country and we should be farming arid animals. why the fuck not. | | Anonymous, on Mar 5, 2009 wrote:
i wrote an article about this at uni, nothing much has changed. the biggest problem that isn’t mentioned in the article is the difficulty of transporting large numbers of camels. The muslim countries demand the camel meat be live for them to use, not a dead camel cut up... sorry to be blunt but it’s the way it is. i grew up on farms and most farmers can’t factor in the cost of transporting LIVE animals the size of a camel across the sea... hence why they don’t farm them. it’s up to the government to come up with some funding for the live transport (you’d need a big plane or probably a boat if you wanted to transport a few of them). | | Anonymous, on Mar 4, 2009 wrote:
WTF. A basic and expected element in a web article is a link to continue investigation. I want to buy a camel. Give me a fucking link, damnit. $1,200 is exactly how much I spent on my car, and the food/vet care would probably cost bout as much as keeping that piece of shit running. Anyone want to get in on a bulk order of these guys? Imagine the bumper sticker - "My other car is a camel". I’m sold. | | Anonymous, on Feb 26, 2009 wrote:
That camel tongue is fucking massive. If my dog’s tongue was that big my whole couch would be sopping wet. I can’t figure out why she likes the couch so much, but apparently it tastes really good. | | | Next 30 comments > |
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