Camels are among the most recognizable animals on the planet, yet few realize that wild populations are at a high risk of extinction.
Of the world's two camel species, the Dromedary camel, characterized by a single hump, became extinct in the wild 2,000 years ago. The second species, the two-humped Bactrian camel, was on a similar trajectory until very recently, but still less than 1,000 of the world's 1.4 million Bactrians are wild.
The abundance of domesticated Bactrian camels relative to wild camels doesn’t address the question of whether it matters if another species of camels goes extinct. John Hare, founder and director of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation, argues that it does. Hare says the world will be a poorer place if wild Bactrian camels are allowed to follow their cousins into the sunset. He notes that wild and domesticated Bactrian camels are thought to have diverged some 700,000 years ago and have a 3.5 base genetic difference, more than twice the separation between humans and chimpanzees, suggesting that they may even be independent species.
Wild Bactrian camel. Photo by John Hare.
Wild camels are exceedingly rare today for a variety of reasons, most significantly because of man's ambition to convert them into beasts of burden. A few populations managed to avoid the fate of their brethren by living in one of the world's harshest environments: the Gobi desert of China and Mongolia, an area lacking in fresh water and buffeted by fierce sandstorms and a temperature range of -40 to 56°C (-40 to 133°F). But while wild camels have thrived under these conditions, along with surviving with more than 40 open-air nuclear tests conducted at Lop Nur in the Gobi by the Chinese military, over half of which were more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the greatest threat to them today comes from hunters hungering for their meat.
Hare, working with local partners and the Chinese government, is fighting to ensure these camels will outlast this final threat by establishing one of the world's largest nature reserves and encouraging local populations to embrace wild camels as a source of pride, rather than a source of protein.
Hare says these efforts could yield benefits beyond saving the rarest camel.
John Hare.
He commented: "The greatest contribution as a result of conserving the wild Bactrian camel comes in the form of answers to the following: How did they survive 43 atmospheric nuclear tests? Is there any linkage between salt water and an ability to withstand radiation? The answers to these two questions could be highly beneficial to mankind."
Hare notes that differences between wild and domesticated Bactrian camels are unsurprising given they are thought to have diverged some 700,000 years ago.
In an August interview with mongabay.com, Hare discussed his efforts to protect the planet's last remaining wild camels.
Note: If you are interested in meeting the Wild Camel Protection Foundation, John Hare will be presenting at the Wildlife Conservation Network's Expo in San Francisco on Saturday, October 3th.
Mongabay: What is your background and how did you get interested in working with the Bactrian camels?
John Hare: I worked for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Nairobi on conservation issues and prior to that had worked in Africa. The work in Africa included working with Dromedrary camels. While at UNEP I had a chance meeting with a Russian professor which led to my inclusion on the joint Russian-Mongolian Expedition to the Gobi Desert. I was the wild camel man on that expedition. I was so interested in the Gobi and the wild camel that I left UNEP and set up the Wild Camel Protection Foundation, a UK registered charity. We helped the Chinese establish one of the biggest nature reserves in the world in China's former nuclear test area (155,000 square kilometers) where the wild Bactrian camel survives. It is the eighth most endangered large mammal on the planet and is critically endangered. In China it survives on salt water with a higher salt content than sea water. It also survived over 43 atmospheric nuclear tests, over half of which were more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. DNA tests confirm that the wild Bactrian separated from the domestic Bactrian camel 200,000 years ago. It has a genetic base difference with the domestic Bactrian of 3 percent. We have a 5 percent difference with a chimpanzee.
Mongabay.com is an environmental science and conservation news website.
