I posted this on PBB as well..
Linky
Australia to Cull Wild Camel Population
Tue Apr 26,11:56 AM ET
By MERAIAH FOLEY, Associated Press Writer
SYDNEY, Australia - Authorities in Australia's Outback said Tuesday they plan to shoot wild camels from helicopters because the rapidly expanding population is encroaching on ranch land — an idea that outraged animal welfare groups.
Officials in South Australia state said they needed to reduce the camel population — which grows by an estimated 11 percent a year — because the animals are straining limited water supplies for sheep and cattle.
"The simplest, quickest and most cost effective way of doing that is an aerial cull," rural lands inspector Chris Turner told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
He estimated the number of camels near ranch lands at 60,000.
The ABC reported that thousands of camels would be culled by marksmen in helicopters. Turner declined to comment on the exact number.
Glenys Oogjes, head of the animal welfare group Animals Australia Animal, said aerial shooting has been used in the past to cull wild horses and goats, and the result was a "bloodbath."
"We've seen terrible cruelty involved in that sort of killing spree and it's virtually impossible operating from the air to check that every animal is killed outright," Oogjes said.
Hugh Wirth, the national president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, agreed.
"You cannot cleanly kill, instantly kill, humanely kill a moving animal from a moving platform," he said.
Camels were introduced to Australia in the mid-1880s to transport supplies across the desert. After trains and trucks replaced them, they were released into the wild, where, with no natural predators and ample grazing land, the population exploded.
Some scientists have estimated that as many as 500,000 wild camels are now roaming the country's vast deserts.
Australia has a history of infestations by animals from overseas.
Rabbits brought from Europe swarmed across parts of the Outback, and noxious cane toads brought from South America to control bugs in sugar cane fields are now spreading across the north, killing native wildlife from snakes to the small crocodiles that eat them.
