The Australian Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said it has not received any formal request from Saudi Arabia or other Gulf countries regarding the import of its wild camels. Ministry spokeswoman Sheree Glasson confirmed the news after recent reports that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states were finding ways to stop Australia culling camels in the country.

In January Arab News reported on some Saudis who initiated an internet campaign calling for the transportation of Australian camels to the Kingdom. The campaign followed an announcement by the Australian government that it would use helicopters and marksmen to corral and kill 6,000 feral camels in a small northern town.

Days later Australians welcomed the proposal to send their wild camels to Saudi Arabia instead of shooting them. At the same time, they warned that the process of transferring the animals would be expensive. "The cull is unfortunate. We're happy to put Saudis in touch with camel exporting companies in Australia. However, it's very expensive to bring them to Saudi Arabia," said Michael Kavanagh, counselor and senior trade commissioner of the Australian Embassy in the Saudi Arabia.

In order to transport the camels, there are logistical problems to be considered such as the lack of roads, the vast deserts that need to be traversed and the large size of the animals. Kavanagh said his office in Australia was producing figures on how much it would cost to transport the camels to Saudi Arabia.

Glasson however said in an interview with a local news agency that the main objective of the culling program is to reduce the growing numbers in some areas and reduce environmental pollution. She also pointed to the fact that gases emitted by the camels are equivalent to the polluted smoke coming out of nearly 300,000 cars.[Environmentalists and vegetarians have recently been writing about flatulence generated by cows as a major source of air pollution. The subject was even mentioned in one of the recent issues of the Economist.]

The Australian government is committed to the implementation of this program, Glasson said, pointing out that her government had received no official request for transferring these camels. She explained that there were a number of conditions that needed to be taken into consideration in the event of receiving such a request.

Online readers and poll participants also proposed solutions on how to make use of the camels instead of killing them and some have welcomed the Saudi campaign to provide a home for the wild animals.

There are about one million feral camels throughout Australia, with numbers doubling every eight or nine years.

Source: Laura Bashraheel in the Arab News (Saudi Arabia) February 23, 2010. Changes were made in keeping with www.memrieconomicblog.org