See Cher live at Whipsnade!
Wednesday 24 December 2003
Cher the Bactrian camel has shoop-shooped her way to Whipsnade Wild Animal Park from Edinburgh Zoo
Cher is a breeding female and her arrival is part of an ongoing plan to maintain genetic diversity to the existing Bactrian camel herd.
Whilst Cher settles into her new home here at the Passage through Asia at Whipsnade, two of our previous inhabitants have also been on the move. Mum Holly and her calf Caramel have now started a new life up in Edinburgh Zoo. Caramel was one of four calves born to the herd in March of this year.
Bactrian camels are now extremely rare. Having once been widely distributed through the Gobi and into China, numbers have been declining for 50 years thanks to competition for food and water with livestock, new roads cut through their once-isolated domain and hunting. Domestic forms are still important to local communities in Mongolia for food and clothing.
Bactrian camels have two humps and they originate from the Mongolian steppe. Camels have a thick coat that allows them to survive the extremely low temperatures in winter and they moult for the summer months, leaving them with a much shorter coat.
