Are there wild (feral) camels in the deserts of Africa/Middle East/South Asia?
The almost 14 million dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in Somalia, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and Indian subcontinent). An estimated half of the worlds camel population are found in Somalia and in the Somali Region of Ethiopia, where the camel is an important part of nomadic Somali life. They provide the Somali people with milk, food and transportation. The Bactrian camel is now reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, mostly domesticated. It is thought that there are about 1000 wild Bactrian camels in the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia. There is a substantial feral population of dromedaries estimated at up to 700,000 in central parts of Australia, descended from individuals introduced as transport animals in the 19th century and early 20th century by the Afghans. This population is growing at approximately 11% per year. The government of South Australia has decided to cull the animals using aerial marksmen, because the camels use too much of
