You could help save the planet if you add desert beast to your diet
"Eat more camels, save Australia" - that's the message camel experts are delivering to the UAE after a report found that the island is being overrun by dromedaries.
More than one million wild camels are invading Australia's aboriginal towns, drinking from toilets, destroying native plant life and adding to global warming by excreting methane with their dung.
Many of the camels are descendants of Bishari riding camels imported from the Gulf in the early 20th Century that are now free to roam throughout Australia.
A major, three-year report has urged the world to eat more camel meat to save Australia's environment and one of Australia's chief camel catchers, Paddy McHugh, told 7DAYS that he has seen a big increase in queries from the UAE as the problem escalates.
"It's expensive to export camels to the UAE, so we're looking at various joint venture offers to export the meat from Australia to the UAE and the response has been fantastic," McHugh said.
McHugh previously sold racing camels to the UAE but said that he wanted to concentrate on meat exports as calls increase for a solution to Australia's camel overpopulation problem.
McHugh is best known in the UAE for organising the Sheikh Zayed International two-day camel race in Queensland, with sponsorship provided by the chairman of the UAE's Camel Racing Association, Sheikh Sultan bin Hamdan al Nahyan.
McHugh said friends visiting from the UAE loved camels and were repulsed by Queensland's policy of shooting them from a helicopter and leaving their bodies to rot on the ground.
"It's a shameful waste of food and resources. The camels should be rounded up and any meat we don't use should be sent abroad.
"You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference in taste between camel meat and beef," he added.
The Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, which wrote the new report, plans to serve camel meat at a barbecue for senior public servants in Canberra today to stress the need for greater camel consumption.
Report co-author Professor Murray McGregor said a good way to bring down the number of camels roaming the country was to eat them.
"Eat a camel today, I've done it," he said.
"It's beautiful meat. It's a bit like beef. It's as lean as lean can be, it's an excellent health food."
© 7Days 2008
