Thursday, February 08, 2007
How did camels get to Australia?
Well, I've got to admit that I had never pondered this question - despite having a friend who has worked as a cameleer in Australia - until I discovered a blog post that said camels had first been imported from the Canary Islands in 1840. This article on Cameleering in Central Australia tells us more about that first rather unsuccessful importation, where half a dozen camels were loaded onto a steamship of the Appoline line in Tenerife. Only one survived the journey.
Of course, the Canary Islands still have camels, previously as beasts of burden and, now mostly used for annual Three Kings parades and by tourists, such as those at the Camello Center at El Tanque here in Tenerife, and the camels (actually, they are all dromedaries) in Lanzarote, who will be off on a European Tour in the summer.
In earlier times, camels were exported, not just to Austrailia, but, "Through the Canary Islands, camels were introduced in the American continent." Naturally, the Canary Islands are merely "stepping stones" in this international trade, since the animals are hardly native, having first arrived here from continental Africa.
But Camels have become an emblem of the islands, so much so that, faced with near extinction in the first half of the 20th Century, in 1985, the Canary Islands Government found it necessary to create a special law to promote camel breeding here.
This article, About the arrival of the camels in the Canary Islands, not only tells us about their arrival, but where many departed to and how they have been used on the islands throughout history. The account, which continues to the present day, even describes their role in the defeat of some of those dastardly English pirates!
