Thousands of “aggressive” feral camels are storming remote communities in central Australia, leaving a trail of destruction in their path.
Northern Territory Environment Minister Joshua Burgoyne said the animals were storming through fences and digging up crucial infrastructure as they search for water.
“We’ve had an extremely dry spell down in Central Australia, and what happens in these dry spells is that these camel who are usually out in the desert will come into these local communities being able to smell the water, and they will quite literally run down fences and dig up water mains to be able to access that water,” he said.
Photographs and videos supplied by the government show hundreds of feral camels over-running the community of Mount Liebig, about 325km west of Alice Springs.
Mr Burgoyne said the camels had disrupted the water supply in some community and were posing a serious safety risk for residents.
In some cases there have been reports of the camels ripping taps off the sides of buildings to get to water.
“They can get quite aggressive, we’re talking about large bull camels, weighing hundreds of kilos, that just want water, and they’re willing to do anything they can to get it,” Mr Burgoyne said.
“They will quite literally run down fences, even those communities that have fences around them, I’ve seen fences completely torn down while these camels are trying to get to water.”
Mr Burgoyne said he would seek assistance from the federal government to assist with camel management.
“We have the expertise in this matter but I think what we really need now is the funding to get out there,” he said.
“There’s been large efforts to cull large numbers of camels but I think the emphasis has really gone off this.
“What we need now is all levels of government, as well as working with the local government and land councils, to really put an emphasis on being able to cull these camels so that they are back to manageable numbers, because what we are seeing now is hundreds of camels that are moving into communities and local councils are quite literally having to hunt these camels out of a morning so that these communities can be safe.”
In 2009 the Northern Territory’s Labor government, with the support of the Federal Government, announced a plan to cull about 6,000 camels following reports they were “terrorising” residents in the community of Docker River.
The plan, which involved rounding the animals up with helicopters before shooting them, faced stiff criticism from animal activists who described it as barbaric.
Camels were introduced to Central Australia in the 1840s as a means of exploration and transportation through the outback.
It’s estimated their numbers have grown to more than one million across the NT, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.