It’s gas! Kill a camel to save the planet

IN 1859 two Irishmen, Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills, led the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north.

It was an ill-fated venture; 12 of the 19 men who set out died on the trek, including both Burke and Wills. There was also an environmental legacy. Camels were imported from India to do the heavy lifting. Able to go for days without water in the hot dry outback, these ‘ships of the desert’ could carry 600kg up to 30km each day. The camel proved to be such an ideal pack animal that Australians fell in love with it. Over 10,000 animals had been imported by 1900 and camel stud farms flourished.

During the 1920s, motorised transport became available so camels were released into the wild. They thrived. There are now more camels in Australia than anywhere else in the world. Numbers may exceed 200,000.

But the love affair with the camel has turned sour. These aliens destroy native plants and threaten eco-systems. The soil becomes so compacted under their broad hoofs that nothing can grow on it. The camel’s sophisticated digestive system produces huge quantities of methane, adding to Australia’s already excessive green-house gas burden.

But belching is the straw which may break the camel’s back; the marriage which began with Burke and Wills looks like ending in domestic violence. A bill going through parliament will allow hunters to target the herds. By doing so, gunmen can earn carbon credits, which they can sell on the emissions-trading market. The incentive, it’s hoped, will eliminate the camels, thereby reducing gas emissions and improving the country’s battered environmental image.

Camel belching, it seems, is not helping one of the country’s other vegetarians, The koala is one of the sub-continent’s most endearing creatures. Numbers have been falling in recent years and, if current trends continue, this cuddly little tree-dweller may soon be found only on island nature reserves. Erroneously referred to as a ‘bear’, the little marsupial is not related to the placental mammals. ‘Marsupium’ is the Latin for ‘purse’; the females of many species have a pouch in which they carry their babies.

A koala may weigh up to 14kg. Oddly for a climbing animal, it has no tail. ‘Koala’ means ‘doesn’t drink’ in one of the Aboriginal languages; this little teddy gets all the water it needs from the leaves which it eats.

Stands of eucalyptus trees in eastern and southern Australia are its preferred stomping ground. Leaves are so poor in nutrients that a koala must consume large amounts of them just to get by. Up to 5kg may be eaten daily, a prodigious amount for such a small animal.

Feeding takes place at night; the hours of daylight are spent sleeping. Baby koalas can’t digest leaves; they feed on their mother’s droppings until a culture of leaf-digesting bacteria develops in the gut.

Such a highly specialised lifestyle requires a stable climate. With the advent of global warming, however, weather patterns are becoming increasingly erratic and the rapid changes are threatening the survival of koalas.

Temperatures have risen to record levels recently and droughts are becoming more common. Some koala populations in Southeast Queensland were halved during the heatwave of 1979/80.

Nor was this a freak one-off event; the prolonged hot spell which hit Victoria in 2009 was unprecedented in intensity and duration. Fires, some of which were started maliciously, made headline news around the world.

Christine Adams-Hosking, a PhD student at the University of Queensland, is studying the impact of climate change on koalas. Speaking on RTÉ’s Mooney Show recently, she claimed that koalas are moving to areas less prone to heatwaves and drought. These, unfortunately, are also the places where people want to live. Prime koala habitat is being destroyed to make way for housing estates. The little marsupials are being killed by vehicles on the newly constructed access roads and harassed by dogs introduced by the residents. Nor is Adams-Hosking optimistic about the effects of climate change in the future. She thinks that areas should be earmarked and set aside as reserves for the koala. Will Australia become a land suitable for camels rather than koalas?