Camel
Distribution and numbers

There are approximately 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.

Over one million dromedary camels are estimated to be feral in Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year; it was estimated at around 700,000 in 2008. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.

A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwestern United States after having been imported in the 19th century as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and exported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.

The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The Wild Bactrian camel is the only truly wild (as opposed to feral) camel in the world. It is a distinct species that is not ancestral to the domestic Bactrian camel. The wild camels are critically endangered and number approximately 950, inhabiting the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in China and Mongolia.
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