Looking for the Wild Bactrian Camel

Image from wildcamels.com

According to Animalinfo.org, wild Bactrian camels are a critically endangered species. A video crew from Planet Earth on BBC went out and tried to get a better grasp on the group before it becomes extinct, but their travels were incredibly difficult.

They found a man who had a great understanding of the Bactrian camel to help them on their journey. He helped the animal by killing a few wolves that had attacked and killed several of them. The group had to stock up on food, gas, and any other items they thought were necessary. They were gone for weeks and the food was not quality and consisted mostly out of a can. There were no gas pumps along the way since they were out in the middle of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia.

The man leading them on their journey would find small clues such as footsteps to know what direction the camel was heading in. There was one footprint that had a tiny rock in it that was covered with sand. The man knew that the camels had just come across there because otherwise the sand would have already blown off of the stone.

As the days went by, the crew’s headsman increasingly became more and more frustrated. His frustration came because every time they would get within shooting distance of the camel they would run away. The camel had good reason to be frightened and nervous of people after several of their kind has been poached.

The desert had different climates and even though the team had off-road vehicles, sometimes it would take five or six people to get the car out of the snowy sand. They knew anyway, that if they were going to get some good shots of the camels they would have to do it on foot, so they walked. They would walk hundreds of miles just to get some close-ups of the animal. After a little over a month they finally were able to get close-ups of the animals and they were great shots.

The Bactrian camel is a very interesting animal. The camel has thick and long darkish brown/tan hair tint. The animal has adapted to the desert where there are very few sources of water and the vegetation is meager. Sometimes snow is the only source of water that they have. The mammal can drink up to 200 liters of water at a time, but eating too much snow can be fatal so they limit themselves to about 10 liters a day. The camel does not sweat or urinate often so that helps them not be thirsty. In the Gobi Desert they disperse widely in search of water.

The weather in the desert gets so hot after winter that the snow does not melt, it turns straight into vapor. Camels have the harshest of weather; in the summer it can reach a blistering 140-160 degrees and in the winter it can get down to -22 degrees. (Animalinfo.org)

Bactrian camels have interesting ways of mating as the mail animal will crouch and let its tail slap up and down about every second. This lets the females know that they are ready to mate.

The crew did not feel that their attempt was successful at first until they were finally able to reach the animal to get some shots of one of the more fascinating species that planet Earth has to offer. Poaching has put them on the brink of extinction, but hopefully people can now help the animal grow into a larger number. Living in the United States, people do not have a good grasp of the camel and hopefully with technology, crews can get to understand the Bactrian camel even better and share that knowledge with Americans.