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Why aren’t these camels harvested for meat?  The export market for camel meat is under supplied. 

Barriers include the isolated locations, cost of freight, and difficulties of capturing and transporting live wild camels. 

Age, sex and size required to meet the meat export market means only a limited selection of animals are suitable. 

SAMEX Australia owns two abattoirs killing camels; one in Peterborough South Australia and the other in Caboolture Queensland. 

For continuity of supply and quality they prefer camels to be farmed, rather than harvested from the wild and transported from Northern South Australia and the Northern Territory as they started out with.  Ideally camels for meat should be between three and ten years old, over 400 kilogrammes live weight, and under 600 kilogrammes to be processed.  Farmed camels are also quieter and easier to handle which also results in less stress and improved meat quality. 

An industry which started with promise of reducing feral camels numbers did not keep pace with overall breeding, and spawned a new farming industry instead of continuing to rid the outback of the environmentally damaging camels.  Peterborough Abattoir remains the largest killing principally feral camels. 

Extracts from ECOS Magazine Camel Facts

"During the millennium drought, desperate for water, feral camels mobbed together: destroying water pipeline infrastructure and damaging fencelines and Aboriginal settlements. Camels currently cause around $10 million of damage per year – if left unchecked, their impact is expected to grow as climate change brings drier and hotter periods to the rangelands."

“Killing camels for export began in Alice Springs in the 1980s. But, according to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF), the industry has struggled with the high costs of working in remote environments and the need to transport live camels over long distance to abattoirs. This limits processing infrastructure and causes irregularity in camel supply and fragmented, inadequate marketing of camel meat.”

For more about exporting camels, live and as meat see Camels Australia

Updated December 2014

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With numbers of feral camels estimated at over a million, the number is doubling every eight years.  They eat most types of the desert vegetation and compete with native animals for this food supply.  They are damaging water holes wells and station stock troughs. 

The significant damage that camels have done and are doing to fragile ecosystems, cultural sites, isolated communities, and pastoral properties has gone largely unnoticed by the bulk of Australia’s population because of the sparse population in these remote areas.

Camels were brought into Australia in 1860s and were an ideal pack animal for the harsh Australian conditions, being able to travel long distances without water, and carry considerable loads.  Afghan cameleers and their camels became an integral part of the development of inland Australia.