Searching for the Wild Bactrian Camel

Natural History, May, 2000 by John Hare

Remnants of the herds ancestral to all domesticated camels may still survive in the deserts of central Asia.

It is late April 1999, and we are about to set out into the Gobi's Chinese sector, a desert in whose heart the temperatures range from -10 [degrees] F in December to 150 [degrees] F in August and where less than an inch of precipitation may fall during the year. We go in search of wild Bactrian (two-humped) camels--remnants, we believe, of the ancestral herds that gave rise to all domesticated camels, both two-humped and one-humped. Perhaps no more than a thousand of these elusive animals survive, about a third in Mongolia and the rest in China, both here in this part of the Gobi and, to the west, in the Taklimakan Desert. Even in these marginal ranges, the animals are increasingly threatened--by iron-ore mining, gold extraction (which contaminates the land with potassium cyanide), oil prospecting, and illegal hunting.

The wild camels' last best hope is in the Chinese Gobi, where the government has just authorized the establishment of the Lop Nur Nature Sanctuary. This 60,000-square-mile preserve includes the dry lake bed of Lop Nur (now cut off by irrigation channels from its former water supply) and the highly restricted zone where China conducted nuclear testing until 1996. The sanctuary project must be quickly translated into reality, and we hope to gather information on the number of animals and their condition, and whatever else we can glean about their lives.

Seven years ago, I had no idea that somewhere in the world there might be truly wild camels, as opposed to feral ones. But having had some experience with camels in Africa, I was invited in 1993 to accompany a joint Russian-Mongolian expedition to the animals' remaining Mongolian homeland. On that venture, apart from seeing a dozen animals that had been captured for a controlled breeding experiment, I sighted only some footprints. Since then, I have been on three journeys into the camels' Chinese domains in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region--by motor vehicle in 1995 and 1996 and by domesticated camel in 1997. The Chinese expeditions are led by Yuan Guoying, an ebullient professor of zoology from the Xinjiang Environmental Protection Institute (I call him the Professor). Joining the team again this time are Li Weidong from the same institute, a small-mammal researcher who doubles as an admirable cook; the Professor's twenty-nine-year-old son, Xiao Yuan, who acts as my interpreter; and the guide to whom we entrust our lives, Zhao Ziyun. A poacher-turned-game-keeper who lays claim to having shot the last free-ranging Przewalski's wild horse, "Old Zhao" has been crisscrossing the Chinese Gobi, both legally and illegally, since the 1970s.

With two jeeps and a supply truck, we establish a base camp in Hongliugou Valley, where we have arrangements to hire twenty domesticated Bactrian camels. We plan to trek eastward, probing valleys in the foothills of the mountains (part of the great Altun Shan range) that border the south side of the desert. These foothills are a summer grazing ground for some of the wild camels, which take advantage of vegetation watered by melting ice and snow. Other camels of the Chinese Gobi remain in the heart of the desert year-round, surviving on plants that grow around saltwater springs. Two years ago, on our first camelback expedition, we discovered and followed the wild camels' well-worn migration route between these two ranges.

In Hongliugou a black sandstorm ("black" because of the very low visibility) scatters our hired camels in all directions. I am reminded that two years earlier we had a close call when, deep in the desert, all but two of our sixteen camels disappeared in a nighttime sandstorm. We were 175 miles from our base camp, and the last water source we had passed was a three days' walk away. On the basis of our water supply, we calculated that we had only six days to find our camels before we would be forced to head back on foot. It took nearly that long for our herdsmen to track down the animals, which had fled all the way to the foothills.

This time we are held hostage for a week until our herdsmen recapture sixteen of the twenty camels and we hire the necessary replacements. We are encouraged to quit camp by an onslaught of large mosquitoes, so Li Weidong, Xiao Yuan, Zhao Ziyun, and I, accompanied by four herdsmen, begin our desert journey, leaving the Professor and the jeep and truck drivers to conduct their own survey using the vehicles. Conditions are now perfect. The ominous mist of dust and sand left by the storm has lifted, and the crevices and gullies that gouge the sides of the mountains stand out in sharp relief.

We wind our way up and over a seemingly endless line of sandstone foothills. On the second day, one of our camels slips and breaks its shoulder, and we have to put the animal out of its misery. By midafternoon, it is clear that another of our camels is tiring. Three of the herdsmen drop behind to encourage her along. While waiting for them to catch up, Xiao Yuan and I rest atop a steep-sided escarpment abutting a valley that leads into the mountains. I lie back, hat over my face, and drift into sleep. Suddenly I hear Xiao Yuan calling me urgently. Six hundred yards away, marching toward us in formation, is the largest group of wild camels I have ever seen--so large a herd that at first I think they must be untended domesticated animals. I struggle to capture the sight with my video camera. Why is everything out of focus? The herd continues to advance. Then they spot us and immediately turn and scatter.