A18-Sunday News, February 24, 1980

eyes -\ustralian

racing camels

BY BRIAN DEWHURST

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia (UPI) - When you consider Britain has sent tom-toms to Nigeria and bird whistles to the Canary Islands, it is easy to believe that Australia exports camels to the Middle East.

In a land that imported camels helped to open up 160 years ago, they have not only survived but have improved on their species.

Australian camels have built up an immunity over the years to most of the diseases that plague their Middle East cousins.

Some cattle ranches still use camels to pull supply wagons to desert camps.

The camels — a domesti- cated species which now run wild — are on the increase. About 30,000 of them ~wander Australia’s deserts.

The first dromedary or one-humped camel was introduced to Australia from Afghanistan where tribes- men for centuries ran caravans for Persians, Greeks, Mongols, Russians and Indians across moun- tains and deserts in searing heat or bitter cold.

Without them, early explorers of Australia could not have paved the way for pioneers to settle the often hostile Australian outback.

The graceful “ship of the

desert” survived on one bucket of water in 17 days, carrying loads of up to 1,000 pounds and eating nothing but thorny bushes garnished with bark.

The camel was invaluable as transportation when the single overland telephone line was looped over 36,000 telegraph poles in 1875, linking north and = south Australia.

For a time, camel dealers had a market in the United States and about 900 Australian camels were exported to America bet- ween 1955 and 1970 to appear in Hollywood movies or at zoos. High freight charges put an end to this trade.

But Noel Fullerton, who runs a camel “spread” near Alice Springs hopes a new breed of racing camel he developed will see the Australian beast once again being shipped to the United States.

He already has one order from a U.S. buyer for an 8- foot tall dromedary named “Lucy” and her two-month- old offspring, “Uacle Sam.”

Fullerton keeps his permanent herd to about 38 prime specimens but he handles shipments through- out the world from the reservoir of camels that roam wild around his homestead.

MOSCOW: Alexia'Kosygin, member of the CPSU CC Politburo, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers,

is pictured making his election speech in an election

“Most of them go to zoos and wildlife parks, but there is a strong and growing interest among the Arab countries for the much healthier Australian camels, particularly the special breed of racing stock which Gan sustain speeds above 40 miles an hour for remarkable distances,” Fullerton said.

“But exporting camels to the Middle East is still frought with — sensitive problems of pride and prejudice.”

He said moves are afoot to circumvent that problem through artificial isemi- nation of the Arab breed.

The high regard for Australian camels in the land

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of their forebears was illustrated in 1975 when the son of the first Afghan Jimmyhdar tribesman to go to Australia, Sallay Mahomet, presented the king of Saudi Arabia with four prime racing specimens while ona visit to Mecca.

The camels, a gift from the then Australian Labor government, rated celebrity treatment on arrival.

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