Mongolia Jockeys to Save the Bactrian Camel | Ubpost News: "Organizers of the tournament, held near Ulaanbaatar, selected 120 camels from Mongolia’s southern Gobi Desert provinces to compete. Herders hawking camel products – such as khoormog, fermented camel milk – and a beauty pageant were also part of the event, organized by Oyunbaatar’s federation with support from the Ministry for Culture, Sports, and Tourism and private companies.
“We are all trying to bring more publicity to the Mongolian camel to encourage herders to continue breeding camels,” says Oyunbaatar.
Domesticated Bactrian camels have long been integral to nomadic life in the Gobi Desert. But their numbers have plummeted in recent generations as their commercial value declined and herders became less motivated to breed them. Between 2000 and 2004, numbers dropped over 20 percent, from 322,900 to 256,600 head, according to figures from the National Statistical Office of Mongolia (NSO). By comparison, there were 895,000 domestic Bactrian camels in 1954. (The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the wild Bactrian camel, Camelus ferus, as “critically endangered.”)"
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