Camel carcasses menace Outback water supplies

The carcasses of wild Oz camels who've succumbed to drought pose a serious threat to water supplies in the country's arid central desert, authorities have warned. The Central Land Council says that thousands of "pools, creeks and other water supplies for local indigenous tribes" have been poisoned by the rotting animals. The …

[Seventh of 7th]

One lump or two?

"They'll then be "left to rot"

But not before el Reg collects their balls for CoTW.

[AlistairJ]

Strueth!

Set the bull toads on them, Shiela!

Either that or set the Shiela's on them, Bruce!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you go to school?

'Cane' toads, not 'bull'.

'Sheila', not 'Shiela'.

Also, the apostrophe is a useful too that you do not appear to have mastered.

Handgrenade, because the barely literate will undoubtedly descend on me in droves because 'spelling doesn't matter as long as the reader understands the meaning'. Tossers.

[Ned Ludd]

Re: Did you go to school?

"the apostrophe is a useful too"

Pedantry is more effective if you proof before posting.

[lukewarmdog]

Hmm

So they'd rather jump in helicopters and rabble rouse until the camels run back to the desert where they will then shoot them to death instead of just running a house out of someones house into a trough that the camels could drink from?

[Oninoshiko]

Brillent!

Because there is a drought. that is a period in time when there is no raid. no rain, meaning no water. lower water table in general, renering any wells dry.

so you want to freely give the water to the camels and die of dehydration... good plan!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah ...

... don't think of it as *giving* them water... think of it as an "investment" that you can "withdraw" later.

(Along with tasty meat).

[Anonymous Coward]

@lukewarmdog

And after you'd given them a drink once.......?

Why....they would just walk out of town, never to return, wouldn't they?

[Moss Icely Spaceport]

Water the camels (stone the crows)

Water in some outback towns is as rare as hens teeth.

These are places where a single days exposure to the sun can kill a man.

The camels are a feral, introduced species, good riddance to them.

[Sordid Details]

Bloomin' 'eck

You know it's bad when even the camels are dying of thirst.

[mwk]

Shoot all the camels

Have a big barbecue.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Shoot all the camels, have a big bbq

And make chewy sweets out of their balls!

[Anonymous Coward]

Happening in Africa too

I saw a story on the BBC site yesterday about how the salt trail people in Mali are switching to trucks because there's no longer enough watering holes for the camels along the trail.

On the other hump, the truck does the trip in 10 days instead of 45.

[Henry Wertz 1]

Camel jerky?

"Shoot all the camels

Have a big barbecue."

That's what I was thinking too -- if they're going to shoot them, they could probably make money off camel jerky or something like this rather than just letting them rot.

[Big Pete]

camel jerky?

this camel jerky you speak of. Is there much of a market for it?

[Roger Jenkins]

Size

Methinks you may be unaware of two things about this country. One is it's enormous size and the other is lack of infrastructure in the outback.

I can appreciate that until you have actually driven 1,000 kms and really still arrived nowhere then you can't appreciate how far out from nowhere the outback really is. Second, when you do drive that 1,000 kms, you pass through very very few villages and most of the travel is on a dirt road.

My point is, that with all the best will in the world it just isn't possible to decide this week to kill, butcher and then dry camel flesh and do it the next week. You just can't get people to the scene in time to do it and the cost would be ginormous.

It's a big land and not many people live in the outback (or want to).

[Rattus Rattus]

He speaks true

A few years ago, I started driving at one coast and drove in more-or-less one direction for three straight days and still had not arrived at the opposite coast. In that time, I passed through a couple of small clusters of buildings and one city. I was taking the mostly-coastal route because it was much more populated. The main highway I was on narrowed down to one lane (total, not one in each direction) for quite a distance and it was not even fully sealed for it's entire length. BTW, oncoming road trains at 110 kph are "fun" when each of you has to drive with one side of your vehicle on the road and one in the dirt in order to fit past each other.

[Richard Cartledge]

Idea

Turn them into Soylent Beige.

[John Angelico]

Is it April 1st already?

...Or is Lester off with the fairies?

Umm, drought killing camels which are dying for lack of water

Yes, acceptable statement - drought = no water. Desert = hot and dry.

Decaying camels polluting and poisoning water.

Unacceptable - you just said they were dying from lack of water. AND that they were even invading towns in search of water (logical presumption: no water in the desert).

So, where is the water the carcasses are supposed to be poisoning?

It certainly can't be in those waterholes, creeks etc which in reality have dried up and therefore can only exist in the text of the article.

Wonder if it's the water they have just found on the moon? :-)

[Steve Brooks]

Common sense? None of that here!

"So, where is the water the carcasses are supposed to be poisoning?"

Oh dear its cabbage time....again.

Camel goes looking for water, finds nearly empty waterhole, lays in the mud, every camel for fifty miles around does same, they all die, in water hole. Then after they die they all get up and walk out of the water hole so that when the next rain comes the waterhole is nice and clean.......NOT!

Lots of people die in the outback die due to lack of commons sense, if most of this lot visited it we could have a mass buriel and get rid of all the inane commentators that spoil these pages. (well I must admit some of them are a good laugh, ozzi ozzi ozzi oye oye oye)

[Disco-Legend-Zeke]

Send in PETA..

and they will get rid of 95% of the problem.

[PogonaV]

seriously

Awww. He's anti-PETA without understanding anything about the issues. Isn't that cute?

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

No Water?

That would give anyone the hump,

Paris, 'cos I used the word "hump" in my post

[Rob Moss.]

A little background on the desert

You can't really imagine it until you have actually set foot there.

It's big, dry on the surface and there are lots of Afghan camels roaming free and destroying entire areas of vegetation by stripping the grass and plants of all of their leaves so they die, causing food shortages for other animals such as Kangaroos and smaller creatures the size of mice that are then food for larger creatures such as Dingoes.

There are plenty of water holes located underneath the ground which the Aboriginals and some of us new Australians know how to find. There is water, but it's scarce. When the Aboriginals move from place to place they know where these water holes are and plan their journey according to that.

When a Camel wonders around and finds a water hole by digging or falling into a well and dies in it, it poisons the water so that it is undrinkable for anyone else. This is the problem.

Camels are a problem. As funny as they look, it's a real problem that is getting worse and worse. They are a pest and Conservationists and people who know the desert all agree that the Camels should be turned into food. I agree, and recently had a delicious Camel Diane in the Alice Springs steakhouse.

Black helicopter, because it's more likely to have a mounted mini-gun turret and camel-seeking missiles.