DARWIN, Australia (AP) — Australia has begun shipping ships of the desert to Saudi Arabia.
Declaring it a major breakthrough into a key market, Peter Seidel on Tuesday exported the first 118 young camels to the Middle East nation.
Seidel already exports the beasts — worth about 500 Australian dollars ($285) each — to Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Camels were first brought to Australia in the 1840s as pack animals, well-suited to opening up the nation’s vast unexplored deserts.
Up to 12,000 camels were imported between 1860 and 1907. When their work was done, the animals were simply turned loose into Australia’s deserts where they have flourished — there are now an estimated 400,000 in the wild.
Seidel catches wild camels for his export business.
“We’re about making what many people see as a feral animal problem into a viable export market,” he told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The vast majority of Australian camel exports are destined for restaurant tables, he said.
“It looks like beef, tastes like beef, but it’s lower in fat. They use it in a lot of traditional stews and curry-type dishes,” he said.
Some animals are also used for breeding or dairy production.
The Middle East has traditionally imported camels from north Africa but Seidel says a combination of disease, drought and political instability has spurred them to look elsewhere.
