Pet camel kills Australian woman

[camels]

Pet camel kills Australian woman
Monday, 20 August 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6954728.stm

A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her.

The woman was found dead at the family's sheep and cattle ranch near the town of Mitchell in Queensland.

The woman had been given the camel as a 60th birthday present earlier this year because of her love of exotic pets.

The camel was just 10 months old but already weighed 152kg (336lbs) and had come close to suffocating the family's pet goat on a number of occasions.

On Saturday, the woman apparently became the object of the male camel's desire.

It knocked her to the ground, lay on top of her and displayed what the police delicately described as possible mating behaviour.

"I'd say it's probably been playing, or it may be even a sexual sort of thing," the Associated Press news agency quoted Queensland police Detective Senior Constable Craig Gregory as saying.

Young camels are not normally aggressive but can become more threatening if treated and raised as pets.

[Does anyone know anything more about this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but 10 months old seems very young to be displaying those sort of behaviours.]

[camelsinfrance]

If anyone sends me another link, or a copy to a link today about this issue, I'm going to scream!

I've had links from family members, my auntie, my friends, my neighbours...

Camels are NOT pets, what on earth was this womans family thinking of... getting her a camel for her birthday!!!

I want an Elephant... but I have no experience of them and I'd never dream of getting an animal like this as a pet, and certainly with little or no working knowledge of it.

I've worked with young male camels, and they are typically far more dominant than females, whilst he won't have reached sexual maturity, it's disgustingly irresponsible, to even consider getting a single male camel as a gift, and further more, I'm surprised alarm bells didn't ring when he tried to "befriend" the family goat.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I cuddle my camels, I pet my camels, and my camels cush for children to groom, brush and stroke them, but I've worked with them extensively, I intuitively know when something is wrong, and identify when they're feeling dominant.

This sad latest turn of events has undoubtedly further damaged the reputation of camels and the camel community as a whole- please excuse me on my soap box, but I'm so very cross to see this has happened again.

[Cameleer]

This topic has been brought up before.
Some people think baby camels are so adorable, fun to play with, and no doubt Camels love to play and wrestle with each other, however you should never play or wrestle with them! I will play kickball with a young camel, you kick the ball and run after it trying to kick it again before the camel gets, this way your both playing with the ball not each other!

Far too many people who don't know how to work with large animals will bottle rise a baby camel and this can cause some real problems. Bucket raising them is the preferred method if the mother camel can't be there. You put the milk in a bucket for them to drink so that the bucket is their mother, not you giving them milk from a bottle in your hand!

Here is a video of a person playing with a baby camel, keep this up and see what happens when the camel grows up weights over a thousand pounds.

I imagine this is probably what happened between the camel and the woman, I know it has happened to other pepole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8fojPFCB24

[bactrian]

indeed a very bad idea to handle with babycamels in that way. too many people don't know how to deal with those animals. Anyway, everybody who wants to keep camels should learn about behaviour and training. Here in Switzerland you at least have to get a permission to keep old world camelids.

Thanks cameleer for your advice.

[camel drover]

http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=camels+fighting&n=21&ei=utf-8&js=1&tnr=20&vid=000161942207
these big boys are going at it and with the equipment he has, there's nothing he can do about the fight except may be knock the winner off with his TRUCK!!! the lady in Florida or the Aussie never had a chance!!! this is why we work with our camels so much!!!!! and attempt to enforce boundaries and limits!!!!

[camel drover]

http://www.ugoto.com/video_camels-sure-can-move.html
a nose chain and some rope the first few times we got on this big boy should have been implemented ya think!!!!!!!???????

[llama_farmer]

I don't know if you have petting zoos and farm parks but they've become a big business in the UK. Sadly too many of the so-called farmers who set these things up have taken to acquiring young camelids for the kids to pet. With the result that we have a lot of problem animals knocking about, especially llamas - very few camels in the UK. Not only does this almost inevitably lead to the animal being put down, but it hardly helps to establish the reputations of those responsibly managing the animals, nor does it lead to any real education about the species for the punters. Of course all baby camelids are cute, but need to be admired from a distance!

[camel drover]

I don't know if you have petting zoos and farm parks but they've become a big business in the UK. Sadly too many of the so-called farmers who set these things up have taken to acquiring young camelids for the kids to pet. With the result that we have a lot of problem animals knocking about, especially llamas - very few camels in the UK. Not only does this almost inevitably lead to the animal being put down, but it hardly helps to establish the reputations of those responsibly managing the animals, nor does it lead to any real education about the species for the punters. Of course all baby camelids are cute, but need to be admired from a distance!

llama farmer your kinda on the right track!!! its not the "petting zoo" that's the problem!!! the problem is we are so fare removed from our food source we have no concept of reality anymore!!!! the thought of killing a chicken drives people NUTS!!!! yet while they are calling the police on you for killing the chicken!!!! there eating those tasty nuggets from McDonalds, DIPPED IN SAUSE!!!! there is no difference but people will argue with you its wrong to kill your chicken!(it had a name and everything) In the 70's most everyone (the masses) was one or two generations off the farm and had a lot of practical knowledge of farm life and livestock handling even if it was second hand information passed down they had some knowledge! now a days everyone is in to peace love and save the planet ("with no practical knowledge" of farm life 30 years later) and no one want to be seen making an animal mind and respect YOUR SPACE!! The EDUCATION from the petting ZOO comes from sparking the idea "SO that's a CAMEL or that's what a llama is" some time just go in a petting Zoo and listen to just how DUMB people are "lack of practical knowledge" We have had a baby calf called a goat and a sheep and after the third try the lady ask well what is is it then!!!!!! the sad part is the whole time SHE WAS TEACHING HER DAUGHTER about the animals!!! I'm sure the lady had perfect SPELLING and PERFECT GRAMMER and was a WIZ with a computer (I'm not) but when she left the Zoo she was smarter having seen the Bar B Q before it made it to the grill and bread!!!! for what its worth S.

Postscript watch our videos on YouTube and you can see what you can do when you get close enough to the camelids to start understanding them! there's nothing new about what we do its just new to us! camels worked when the pyramids were being built!! learn and teach! our motto at our petting zoo is "to EDUCATE AND ENTERTIAN" with out the entertainment there's no one around to EDUCATE! MOST OF THE CAMELS IN OUR VIDEOS ARE BOTTLE BABYS OUT OF PETTING ZOO's S.

[llama_farmer]

the problem is we are so fare removed from our food source we have no concept of reality anymore!!!! In the 70's most everyone (the masses) was one or two generations off the farm and had a lot of practical knowledge of farm life and livestock handling even if it was second hand information passed down they had some knowledge!

That's certainly true and I could quote all sorts of amusing anecdotes (e.g. milk churns described as "cows eggs") Teachers seem to be the worst for ignorance of the food chain, which is an indictment of our teacher training. However, I suspect what we have here is rather different as few of these outfits include education as a part of their remit. Instead entertainment is all. A more successful approach is what we have set up as Open Farm Sunday (http://www.farmsunday.org/ofs/home.eb) where a diversity of farms open their doors to the public for various events. These have made quite an impact on educating the general public on the source of what goes onto their table.

Actually I suspect in the US you guys are a little closer to the rural roots than here in the UK as many of you still head off to the backwoods on vacations whereas most people in the UK head for the beaches of Spain.

On bottle fed babies. I have no experience with camels (that's why I started hanging out here :D) With llamas we try to avoid the bottle and where it becomes necessary minimise contact when doing so. The aim is to ensure the cria learns to distinguish llamas and humans and avoid developing a problem adult. I've trained a couple of bottle fed llamas with success so know that they are not inevitably broken. However, I've been involved with rescuing a few mistreated and over-petted farm park llamas and in every case the animal was a danger to itself and others.

I've been enjoying all the videos on this site, BTW; thanks so much for posting them :)

[camel drover]

one of the best camel bulls i have ever seen was a bottle baby! I did not know this when my 10 year old daughter was riding him in a string of seven! my friend said and i quote "he is the most dependable camel i own out of 30"! do you want me to catch something else for her to ride !!! BUT they never loved and petted him they just fed and walked so he never imprinted on humans !!! i don't know if it can be done with llamas or not!!!! i was told there has never been a paint camel baby that was momma raised to date by the man that brought them in to this country!!! so he would know he said and i quote "walk and feed ,feed and walk don't let him think you are momma move on" "there to expensive to take the chance that she is a lousy mother" so they bottle feed every thing a paint bull sold for 19,000 US last spring my wife made me quit way before that!!!! it was crazzy Scott

[llama_farmer]

BUT they never loved and petted him they just fed and walked so he never imprinted on humans !!! i don't know if it can be done with llamas or not!!!!

Yup that works perfectly well with llamas too. The problems we see are exactly the cases where the cria is petted and treated like a kitten.