Confusing Camels

There is probably no animal with a more iconic association with the desert than the camel.  Or "camels," I should say - there are three species.  That was news to me when I heard it a few months ago.  For most of my life, I'd always thought that there were just two living species of camel.  The single-humped dromedary, or Arabian camel, and the two-humped Bactrian camel.  To remember the difference between the two, I was taught, all you had to do was take the first letter of their names and lay them on their sides. A "D" as one hump.  A "B" has two.

The one-humped camel exists nowhere in the world as a true wild animal.  It is found in North Africa and the Middle East as a domestic animal, and like all domestic animals there are a few ferals out there.  Except for Australia, where there are a lot of ferals, and the species is established and breeding in the wild.  The two-humped camel, I've since learned, is now divided into two species.  There are the domesticated ones, found throughout central Asia.  There are also the vanishingly rare wild ones, critically endangered, found only in the remotest corner of China and Mongolia.  Originally, the wild camels were considered to be feral escapees of the domesticated Bactrian camel, until DNA evidence confirmed that the two were separate species.  When one cares to look at them, there are physical differences between the wild and domestic Bactrians, from the size of the humps to the shape of the feet and head - the native Mongolian people called the wild camel the "flat head."

I'd seen many two-humped camels in the course of my zoo travels, even cared for a few, but all of them have been of the domestic stock.  To be far, a lot of zoos kind of gloss over the distinction between wild and domestic camels and treat their animals as if they are the wild species (a practice I've also seen with other Asian ungulates with common domestic animals and rare wild ones - yaks and water buffalo).  It could be considered slightly dishonest messaging, or just the use of a stand in - though I don't know of any zoo that would, for example, use a domestic dog as a stand in for a gray wolf without mentioning the difference.  That being said, I doubt many visitors would notice the camel substitution.

If zoos don't exhibit wild Bactrian camels, it's because there aren't many to go around.  The animals are very rare, with their habitat disappearing and their living space being increasingly encroached upon - including by domestic Bactrian camels, with which they will interbreed (especially when finding wild mates gets harder and harder.

The confusion between the wild and domestic camels is something that zoos should work to clarify, rather than muddy the waters on.  If people are left with the impression that there are plenty of two-humped camels out there, or that the wild ones are simply domestic ones on the loose, it will seriously impede efforts to conserve the endangered wild camels.  I've no objection to zoos exhibiting the domestic ones, and even using them as a stand in - I've seen them mixed with wild Asian hoofstock as a Mongolian steppes exhibit before, for example.  But the exhibition of Bactrian camels in zoos should a) acknowledge the existence of the wild population and b) serve to raise awareness, funds, and support for protecting the more endangered camels in the wild.