World Camel Day!

This week Wednesday is World Camel Day! Yep, the undisputed hump day is this Wednesday. That’s a fun fact you can spring on your buddies! There are two kinds of camels, basically 1 hump or two humps. Dromedary (Arabian) camels have 1 hump and Bactrian (Asian) Camels have 2. The largest myth about camels is that their humps are filled with water, which they aren’t. The hump is a fat reserve that a camel can metabolize for survival in times when food and water are scarce.

Camels have two rows of eyelashes to keep the sand out of their eyes in the desert. If you’ve ever been in the desert when the wind kicked up you would understand why. I actually had a friend get sand in her eye a couple of weeks ago in the same desert they shot "Star Wars" in. You know, Luke’s home planet! She was in bad shape for the rest of the day so that double row of lashes sounds like a great safety precaution from mother nature. Camels also possess the ability to close their nostrils to protect their airways from sand as well.

A thirsty camel can drink up to 135 liters of water in 1 sitting and rehydrate faster than any other animal. They drink to replace the water they’ve lost. Camels roam the deserts in herds of up to 30 members. Camels can also run at speeds of up to 25 miles an hour for extended periods.

A camel has a gestation period of 12 to 14 months and usually only give birth to one baby but can have twins. A newborn calf is able to walk within the first 30 minutes of birth. The mother will keep the baby from the herd for the first couple of weeks in the calf’s life and a camel is considered fully mature at the age of 7 years.

Timbavati Wildlife Park is unique in that not only can you feed the camels from our Giraffe and Camel Feeding Station but you can also ride the "ships of the desert." That’s right we offer camel rides at our park and it’s just one of the ways that you can turn your visit to the Wisconsin Dells from an event into a memory.

Here are our owners Mark and Alice Schoebel feeding some of our baby camels in Timbavati Wildlife Park.