Camels at sunset

Hi there

Sorry for the prolonged absence. Haven't had much of a chance to shoot over the last couple of months but wanting to change that over Spring-Summer.

I took these shots on Henbury Station which has been reccently purchased by RM Williams for carbon credits. This means they will be removing all cattle, horses, donkeys and camels. The camels in the following shots are bulls and they were quiet enough to approach on foot to within about 10 metres. Camels are very much a part of the central Australian landscape. Although the magnitude of environmental damage they inflict is questionable (except for a handfull of plants like the threatened quandong which they absolutely smash!), many millions of dollars have been allocated to their control over the next few years. The main political pressure came from pastoralists because camels were begining to cost a heap of money through the damage they cause to fences and other infrastructure. Camels also began to damage infrastructure in remote Aboriginal communties, apparently regularly smashing evaporative air-conditioning units to access the water.

Personally, I wish that kind of money was directed towards a biological control for cats! Feral cats are the #1 reason why extinct in the wild mammals, such as the rufous-hare wallaby and burrowing bettong, cannot be re-released on the Australian mainland. Anyway, camels are pretty photogenic, hope you like.