News Service from House Harris

Fed: Camel on Aussie menu of the future

CANBERRA, Dec 9 AAP - The barbecues of the future will be crammed with sizzling camel and kangaroo meat if scientists have their way.

Experts have urged consumers to eat more camel as the feral animals wreak environmental havoc across the country's centre.

A three-year study, released on Tuesday, has found Australia's one million-plus camel population is out of control.

Report co-author Murray McGregor, an agribusiness lecturer, said a good way to bring down the number of camels was to eat them.

"Eat a camel today, I've done it," Professor McGregor told AAP.

"It's beautiful meat.

"It's a bit like beef. It's as lean as lean, it's an excellent health food."

Prof McGregor said camels might look "ugly" to some and were known for spitting, but that should not deter diners.

The Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, which wrote the report, will serve up camel at a barbecue for senior public servants in Canberra tomorrow to try to win them around.

Camel is on the menu in Alice Springs, but Prof McGregor said it did not appear to be standard fare in metropolitan areas.

The report found Australia had the world's largest herd of wild camels.

They are inflicting major damage on fragile desert ecosystems, water sources, rare plants and animals, and indigenous sites, the report found.

Camels also made climate change worse by burping up greenhouse gases and turning various landscapes into deserts.

Australians have already been urged to eat more kangaroo for environmental reasons.

National climate adviser Ross Garnaut recently said beef and lamb had a high carbon hoof-print, and told people to eat kangaroo instead because it would cut greenhouse gas emissions.

He suggested kangaroos be farmed en masse.

Kangaroos do not emit methane, a noxious greenhouse gas which is burped up by sheep and cows.