As part of our special behind the scenes tour at the Zoo, we fed the camels and I was disgusted by the slobbering mouth that grabbed the celery I was offering. Most Bactrian camels are domesticated and are valuable to Mongolians (like Genghis Khan), who use these camels as a source for wool and milk and as pack animals in the desert. In the times of the Roman Empire, camels were used by merchants to carry silk to Western Civilization.

Despite their importance to humanity, in the wild, Bactrian camels’ numbers are decreasing from poaching, and they are rated as critically endangered. Wild Bactrian camels are valuable to genetic diversity. If wild Bactrian camels went extinct, valuable able-bodied genes would be lost from the camel’s breeding pool. Maintaining large genetic diversity within a species is important to the survival of the species because more traits give it a larger chance of survival in the event of an environmental disturbance or disease outbreak.

Bactrian camels are important to humans because some cultures need the Bactrian as part of their daily life. In the event of a catastrophe that wiped out domesticated Bactrian camels, preserving wild Bactrian camels would be important because their adaptive traits would give a good base needed domesticated camels. Wild Bactrian camels are also valuable to the ecosystem where they live. Each animal has a certain niche, or job, in which they keep the ecosystem in order. Bactrian camels in the wild do not abuse the little resources in their desert home; if they were taken out, other species would take their place and may abuse the resources in the desert. With that in mind, I guess getting drooled on by a domesticated camel, besides being disgusting, has also raised my awareness of the need for camel diversity.

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