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Camels Gone Wild 29

Posted by samzenpus from the one-hump-or-two dept.
The small central Australian community of Docker River is experiencing a Camelpocalypse. Over 6,000 feral camels are destroying the town. They've overrun the airport (making emergency medical service impossible), ruined the water infrastructure, tainted drinking water, and left many residents afraid to leave home for fear of being trampled. NT Local Government Minister Rob Knight said, "They're actually coming up to the houses taking water off the overflow from the rooftop air-conditioning. This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action.'' At least the camels aren't encouraging kids to smoke like they do here in the US.

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Camels Gone Wild More

Camels Gone Wild

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  • Camels? (Score:1, Informative)

    by rmushkatblat ( 1690080 )
    Australia has camels?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )
      They were imported to replace horses during Australia's settlement, much of the centre of Australia is very dry and much better suited to camels than horses. In one famous long distance race, a camel was beaten by a horse to the finish line, at which time the horse gave up and died. The camel and it's rider turned around and went back to the start line. We actually export live camels to the middle east, as we have lots of strong wild camels and there are also plans to start slaughtering them and selling th

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by v1 ( 525388 )

        I have a one-word solution to the problem

        camelburgers

        Round these parts, deer can start becoming a problem when there's a really good season for them. They just widen the hunting season a few weeks or a month. Problem solved. And plenty of deer jerkey to go around.

        • Good idea but I think you are underestimating the scale and isolation of the Australian outback. Camels are considered vermin as are ferral horses, donkey's, goats, pigs, water buffallo, deer, rabbits, cats, dogs, etc. It's already open season all year round on all of these imported critters. In other words there are too many camels and not enough people. Some (like those in the article) will end up as pet food but the camels major predator here in Oz is the diesel train, the stupid fuckers tend to run sin

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by v1 ( 525388 )

            the stupid fuckers tend to run single file up the tracks insead of stepping off to one side.

            A lot of herd animals behave that way. I've seen numerous videos where people in savannah trucks are chasing down say, a giraffe, and can drive up right beside it and run directly beside it for miles if needed, and can just take their time to lasso it because it'll never cut away like you'd expect an intelligent animal being chased to do. Something about their instinct just drives them to run in a straight line as

        • Sounds delicious... What do camels taste like anyway?
  • There is simply no reason, in this day and age, to be menaced by any animal large enough to shoot.

    Excuses can be made for microbes, and insects, and rats, and things; because antibiotics and poisons and stuff are actually pretty tricky; but camels?
    • "There is simply no reason, in this day and age, to be menaced by any animal large enough to shoot."

      These people are not living in your "day and age". There are about 300 dirt poor aborigines in Docker river including women and children, between them all there would probably be a few dozen shotguns and .22 rifles that they use to put oversized lizards on the dinner table. Attacking a camel with either of those weapons would do little except piss it off.

      6000 camels in town of 300 poorly equiped natives
      • So why can't the aborigines take out their poison dart guns and go to work?
        • Because they're aborigines not amazonians. I've never tried to kill a Camel with a boomerang but I imagine it would be difficult.

  • Gun control FTW!

    • dude, camels aren't cheetahs. You can just punch them in the face and they'll leave. They have no horns to maul you and have to turn around to kick you. You have to be a really clumsy, slow idiot to actually get hurt from one. You just flick em on the nose and they're out of there! They HATE getting hit on the nose.

      • >>dude, camels aren't cheetahs.

        No, but a camel can change it's spots.

        >>They HATE getting hit on the nose.

        Well, for the record...so do I.

      • I agree scaring one camel away is not a problem, the worst case senario is you get covered in snot. But 6000 frightened camels could really fuck up your day.
    • There is no law in Oz against shooting a camel with a bolt action 303 or similar weapon, in fact the government encourages the practice. This is not Texas, the town is a dirt poor native settlement with very few people, there would be a few shotguns and 22's for hunting dinner but both of these weapons would do little more than panic a herd of 6000 camels, until now there was no need to spend what little money they have on more powerfull/expensive weapons/ammo.

    • God it hurts. I laughed so hard reading that I need to go lie down now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gilmoure ( 18428 )

        A link from the wiki page: How we lost the emu war [emugigs.com]

        Onlookers were surprised by the emus' ability to sustain injury and keep running. Major Meredith was quoted as saying: "If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world. They could face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus....

        This is how I will now always think of emus.

        • Unlike many Americans, I have read a few accounts of a certain event at Rorke's Drift, so that evokes quite an image. Thanks.

  • And here I thought this would be about perl scripts turning evil...
  • What does camel meat taste like?

    • What does camel meat taste like?

      I don't know, and I'm slightly thankful that I can't think of anyone I know who is likely to know at the moment.
      On the other hand, I can think of several people who might relish the challenge. There's a zoo a couple of hundred miles away which I think has some camels.

      Tell you what, you go and blow a camel over the weekend, and I'll round up the various bestiality homos I can think of and see if I can persuade them to go to the zoo one night.
      We can compare notes next week?

  • ... They are copying movies, copying music, breaking DMCA, pirating Windows ....

    And you could be sure there would be no camels left in the area after
    about 30 minutes.

  • I have a plan for how to utilize that money:

    1: Purchase numerous guns and plenty of ammunition
    2: Purchase airfare to locale with several other friends
    3: ?
    4: Profit! (Approximately 18 million dollars worth, easily)



    (3 by the way is shoot a crap load of camels)

  • Where's Tom Selleck [wikipedia.org] when you need him?

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