WILD CAMEL PROTECTION FOUNDATION Newsletter

WILD CAMEL PROTECTION FOUNDATION

School Farm, Benenden, Kent, TN17 4EU England

Tel: 44 (0) 1580 241 132
Email: harecamel@aol.com
www.wildcamels.com
Hon. Life Patron: Dr. Jane Goodall D.B.E.
Patrons:
The Marchioness of Bute, Damon de Laszlo,, Lulu Lytle, Jane McMorland Hunter of Hafton,
Professor David Munro, The Marchioness of Reading

June 2009 - Newsletter Number 21

Dear Supporter,

Patron
Lady Bute, is a long-standing supporter of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation and the wild Bactrian camels, and she is one of the few members who has visited the wild Bactrian camel breeding centre at Zakhyn Us in Mongolia and trekked on domestic Bactrian camels to Mother Mountain. It was her excellent suggestion, which she put to the Trustees, that we should invite several people to become Patrons of the Wild Camel Protection Foundation. Lady Bute kindly agreed to become a Patron and we look forward to all our new Patrons helping us in our efforts to raise awareness of our work and in the present difficult economic climate assist us with our fund-raising activities.

Funding
You are all aware, of the extra call on our funds over $15,000 to purchase the additional hay required for food for the wild Bactrian camels at the Breeding Centre. This was as a result of the severe snowstorms which occurred during the early Mongolian winter. This call on our Reserve Funds has left our finances severely depleted. Thank you very much to the many members who responded most generously to our call for funding. In particular we would like to thank the Member who very generously paid for the motor bike for the herdsman, Tsog Erdene. This improved his ability to work in very difficult and severe weather conditions, and made it much more manageable for him, especially during the recent breeding and calving season.

We are now working very hard to replenish the Reserve Fund so as to cover the annual costs of the Breeding Centre and on-going our work in Mongolia and China to protect and conserve the wild Bactrian camel. To help us do this we have organized two fund-raising events in England. Here are the details of the first one taken from our promotional leaflet:

June 21st JOSEPH AND HIS AMAZING CAMELS
WHERE: The Old Farmhouse, White House Farm, Idlicote, Near Shipston-on-Stour. Warwickshire CV36 5DN. We will put signs up from Halford, Honington and Idlicote From London you take the M40 and leave at J11, follow the A361 for 12miles until left turn for Halford in Pillerton Priors and follow signs for open Day. From the North M6 or M1 to M40 leave at J15 and follow A429 to Halford.
WHEN : 21 June 2009
TIME: 12.00 pm - 6.00pm
The only camel racing business in the UK is putting on a spectacular display to raise money for the Wild Camel Protection Foundation the only camel Foundation in the world with the aim of protecting and conserving the wild Bactrian camel in the wild in China and Mongolia.
Bring the whole family for a fascinating day out. Give YOUR children a ride on a Bactrian camel.
There are SEVEN domestic Bactrian camels impeccably mannered and professionally trained with Jockeys who are all experienced riders schooled to get the best out of the camels. All Jockeys and handlers are attired in Arabian style costumes to complement the camels in their magnificent racing colours.
Belly Dancing 12.00pm - 2.00 pm
Camel Racing 2.00pm
Pig Racing 3.00 pm
Camel Riding 4.00 pm - 6.00 pm.
Book (old books) Stall Cake Stall
Bowling at Skittles and other side-shows including a working smithy
Pin the tail on a camel
Bar and country fair food
Car Park Fee - £5.00
As you can see this should be a lively event and we are inviting ALL members and Supporters to come and enjoy a day out for the wild Bactrian camel. If any members would like to run a stall we would like to hear from you and we also need volunteers. Please Email me on harecamel.aol.com Cakes for the cake stall would also be VERY WELCOME. So do come along, bring a cake and your old books and enjoy yourselves. If you would like to be sent a promotional leaflet in colour , so you can advertise the event for us, please ask me for one.
SECOND FUND RAISING EVENT – A DINNER
The second fund-raising activity is very different. One of our Patrons, Damon de Laszlo has agreed to host a dinner on 7th July at his house in Albany, Piccadilly, London which used to belong to Byron. 18 guests have been invited to dine in these surroundings and see some of the portraits which were painted during the Edwardian era by Damon’s grandfather, Philip de Laszlo. Jane Goodall will make a pre-recorded address and I will talk about wild Bactrian camels for about 5 minutes. The guests will then be invited to make a generous donation to the Wild Camel Protection Foundation. If any Member knows of anyone who may be interested in being one of these guests could they please get in touch with me direct. Numbers are very restricted.


OTHER FUND-RAISING IDEAS
In addition, if any member has any other fund–raising ideas to please do let us have them. Costs for the Breeding Centre in Mongolia are approximately £35,000 a year. However what we are trying to secure is long term funding for Mongolia and also for further survey and scientific field work required in China.

VEHICLE - URGENT
We still need to purchase a vehicle, a good second-hand which would cost approximately, $45,000. All ideas as to how we might obtain sponsorship for the cost
of this vehicle and donations towards the purchase price are most welcome.

CHINA:
Yuan Lei, Professor Yuan Guoying’s son who works full time for the Reserve has sent in regular reports both to us and ZSL in his capacity as an Edge Fellow. These have been informative and detailed and he has made two more expeditions into the Reserve since the last newsletter with members of the Reserve office staff. We are putting him forward for a Wildlife Conservation Network scholarship. He is currently working towards his Doctorate. We are very fortunate to have him as part of the team in China.
I have been invited to join one of the Reserve’s surveys in the autumn of this year to the Taklamakan Desert which is outside the Reserve. Wild Batrian camels have been sighted in this desert and the investigation plans to try to ascertain just how many there are. At the time of writing I have not managed to acquire the funding needed for me to join them (approximately $12,000) but I live in hope!

MONGOLIA:
The disquieting news concerning the illegal gold miners who had entered the
Mongolian Great Gobi Specially Protected Area ‘A’, the habitat of the wild Bactrian camel and other critically endangered species, which I reported on in the last newsletter has been given a new twist. There is now proposal to de-gazette parts of Gobi ‘A’ to allow gold mining to take place. We have written to inform all the international organizations such as IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), ZSL (Zoological Society of London), Denver Zoo, CMS (Convention for Migratory Species) who have an interest in protecting the Mongolian Great Gobi about this serious development. We are, through Bilgee and the Mongolian Wild Camel NGO and the members in the Mongolian Ministry of Nature and Environment trying hard and putting pressure on members of the parliament to vote against this proposal. We have asked Bilgee to keep us informed as events unfold. Of course, it is a highly political proposal which would have far-reaching consequences, not only for the critically endangered species within the protected area, but also for other reserves and for conservation generally in Mongolia. We will keep our members closely informed.

NEW BORN CALVES AT THE BREEDING CENTRE
Three new calves have been born at the Breeding Centre, Zakhyn-Us. They were born at the end of the current calving season and have all survived to date. Two of the calves are male and one is a female. We would have liked all three to be female as too many young males present problems but we cannot be arbiters on the sex of our young captive camels!

SEPTEMBER 2009 – MEETING TO AGREE RELEASE PROGRAMME FOR THE WILD BACTRIAN CAMELS AT THE BREEDING CENTRE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE WILD BACTRIAN CAMEL IN MONGOLIA
In conjunction with ZSL, the WCPF UK and the WCPF Mongolian NGO, the Mongolian Ministry of Environment and Nature (MNE) are planning a meeting in Ulaan Baator in September 2009. Local stakeholders and international scientists concerned with the wild Bactrian camel will be invited to this meeting as well. The aim of the meeting is to discuss and decide on a Release Programme in a protected area in Mongolia for the wild Bactrian camels at the Breeding Centre; and the development of the Strategic Plan for the protection and conservation of the wild Bactrian camel in Mongolia. This must be done with the approval and agreement of the MNE. The results of this meeting will eventually become part of the Mongolian National Programme for the wild Bactrian camel. The WCPF Mongolian NGO is now preparing materials for this meeting.

WILD CAMEL PROTECTION FOUNDATION - MONGOLIAN MICROFINANCE
Part of our work is supporting the Communities local to the Breeding Centre. We are already selling knitted items on our website. The WCPF has been asked by the women knitters to help with the cost of a local building. The cost to WCPF would be 50% of the total cost of a building, which will give the knitters of the Bactrian camel items, hats scarves glove and socks, a much better place to work. They would also be able to knit more items for us to sell, and earn more income themselves.
The total cost of this local Mongolian Community project is $2,100.
WCPF microfinance funding would be $1,050 (50%).
This is part of a microfinance project, with the knitters repaying the WCPF annually with knitted items, using local Bactrian camel wool, which WCPF can then sell.

EDGE – Wild Mammals on the Edge of Extinction
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) with whom we have a five-year working agreement launched a programme called EDGE in March 2007 to support wild mammals, which are on the edge of extinction. If you want to visit the website click on www.wildcamels.com and on our website look for links to ZSL/EDGE. There is also a regular Blog on the ZSL EDGE website. Under the EDGE criteria the wild Bactrian camel is listed as the eighth most critically endangered wild mammal in the world. The two WCPF sponsored EDGE fellows, are Yad Adiya in Mongolia and Yuan Lei in China. They have completed their fieldwork surveys in their respective territories – The Great Gobi Specially Protected Area ‘A’ in southern Mongolia and the Lop Nur Wild Camel National Reserve in China. On Yuan Lei’s last survey on behalf of the Edge Programme in China the team encountered 142 wild Bactrian camels which is excellent news and highlights the need for an accurate survey to establish whether there are more than 600 wild Bactrian in China.

DNA TESTING
An Email just received from Dr Pamela Burger the University of Veterinary Medicine. Her student Katja Silbermayr is doing her post-graduate work on wild Bactrian camel DNA genetic testing using domestic and wild Bactrian camel samples collected from China and Mongolia and she states that:

As for the divergence between wild and domestic Bactrian camels. These
data (1.9%) also give us the argument that the wild Bactrian camel is
truly wild, since they cannot be feral when the split occurred
estimated at 700,000 (0.7 million) years ago, long before domestication took place.
This appears to justify all the hard work that the WCPF has put in over the past 12 years to bring to international attention, that the wild Bactrian camel is truly wild, and not a descendant of Silk Road runaways. I have replied as follows to Dr Burger and await her reply with great interest:

Your findings on the variation between the wild and domestic camels which indicate that the wild Bactrian camel is a truly wild animal which split 700,000 years ago is excellent news for us. It endorses our unproven beliefs and theories and gives us an even greater incentive for ensuring the protection of this critically endangered animal.
Two questions:
1. Is there now a real justification for saying this either is, or could be, a separate species? I should be very interested to have your view on this. If the answer is 'could be', how much more work do you need to undertake before you can conclusively say that the wild Bactrian camel is a separate species of camel?
2. If your answer to this question is, 'more work is needed to be undertaken,' what other samples do you now need in order of priority to continue your work and from which areas: e.g. China or Mongolia, wild or domestic, Dromedary or Bactrian. If you could let me have a priority list, I will do my best to get samples to you as soon as I can. It would be a huge boost to our work if one day the evidence conclusively proved that the wild Bactrian is a separate species


BACTRIAN CAMELS ACROSS EUROPE
FUND RAISING AND PUBLIC AWARENESS
WCPF came to the conclusion that the walk across France with two domestic Bactrians to raise funds was going to cost more than we could hope to raise. The cost of buying and training the camels, flying from Mongolia to France two Mongolian herdsmen, the threat of being held up by Blue Tongue restrictions, the effects of the credit crunch on people who had volunteered to walk with the camels added up to too much. But in the process of attempting to organize it we discovered French Bactrian camel enthusiasts Paul and Sarah Bird who will try to help us to put our message across in France to school-children and the general public. www.lamaisondeschameaux
In conjunction with the Birds we have translated The King of the Gobi, our children’s book about the wild Bactrian camel, into French. Funds at the moment to not allow us to print it and we are looking for a sponsor.

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK (WCN)
WCN has invited me back to Los Altos in California to participate in the fund-raising event for endangered species. The schedule is:
Friday, October 2 - 6:00-9:00pm
Friday evening will be an invitation-only event for WCN's top donors and you. Dr. Jane Goodall will attend this event as a special guest.
Saturday October 3 - 10:00am - 6:00pm
The Wildlife Conservation Expo is your chance to present your work to the public. You'll have a 30-minute speaking slot and two tables to exhibit your project's literature, sell merchandise and meet with potential supporters. Speakers will be in two theatres with a 15-minute break in between each talk from 10:00am to 6:00pm. Dr. Jane Goodall will be the Keynote speaker and we expect to have more than 900 people. The Expo will be held at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco.
Sunday, October 4 - 12:00 - 7:00pm
The Conservation Garden Party. This is your chance to talk with donors you've met over the weekend. We expect approximately 200-250 throughout the day, and 125 at any one time. Attendees will include many of WCN's top donors and likely some new potential supporters as well. With our Honorary Life Patron Dr. Jane Goodall DBE. there championing our cause, I sincerely hope we manage to raise substantial funds for the wild Bactrian camel.

SPONSORSHIP: CAPTIVE WILD BACTRIAN CAMELS
First of all thank you to all twelve members and supporters who have already generously sponsored a young wild Bactrian camel. We now have pictures of the young camel calves on our updated Website. However, to continue to protect the captive wild Bactrian camels especially the three new calves, to manage the pasture areas and water, we must have our herdsman and his assistants there on site full-time now. During the winter and spring months it is necessary to buy additional hay. This is expensive and we have already mentioned. Whenever possible we purchase hay locally, to provide badly needed income and to cut the high transport costs. Expensive Medicines are required for the females and their off-spring during the first five years. And the Project Director, Bilgee works continuously with the local communities and schools involving them in the work of the Breeding Centre, and ensuring they understand the importance of protecting the wild Bactrian camel a Mongolian Red Book listed endangered species. The good news is the success of the Breeding Centre Project to date, however this also means more pregnant females. As a result we urgently require at three more sponsors to cover the costs of three new calves.

TALKS
I am always giving talks to both raise awareness of the plight of the wild Bactrian camel and funds for the work of the Foundation. Remember, we have the rights to show that wonderful film, ‘The Weeping Camel’ to raise money for the WCPF. If any member has a hall or suitable site which they can hire, then we can arrange a showing of the film, so Ideas please.

John Hare’s – MY NEW BOOK – THE MYSTERIES OF THE GOBI
‘The Mysteries of the Gobi: Searching for Wild Camels and Lost Cities in the Heart of Asia’ was published by I.B. Tauris, (February 2009). Book price is £18.00 and it has been well received. Members can order at a discount price £15.00 from me direct.

WEBSITE CHANGES
We have recently updated the http://www.wildcamels.com website and now have a Shopping Page. Please visit the site. Payment by Paypal; UK/Euro/USDCheque or bank transfer. Details are on the website.

NEW RANGE OF GOODS - KNITTED ITEMS – CHOCOLATE BACTRIANS
We have range of unique items knitted by our herdsman’s wife from the wild Bactrian camel hair collected from the Mongolian Breeding Centre are available.
We have for £3.50 each solid milk or dark Bactrian camel chocolates, approximately 5 inches long, which are hand-made for us in Cornwall. We have already sold out three times. Order through harecamel@aol.com or from direct from WCPF address: School Farm, Benenden, Kent. TN17 4EU.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
Most members have renewed their annual membership for 2006/2007/2008, but if you haven’t, please send £20.00 (or its equivalent in foreign currency). You can go onto the website www.wildcamels.com and pay using Paypal.
If you are paying in US dollars or Euros you can also transfer funds direct into the WCPF’s Euro or US dollar accounts. Please email us and ask for the bank transfer details. After 10 years we have decided to raise our subscription by £5 to £20/$40/25 Euros from 2008. Could members kindly adjust their payments accordingly?

EMAIL ADDRESS
We would like to cut the cost of postage so, PLEASE IF YOU HAVE AN EMAIL ADDRESS THEN SEND IT TO US TO SAVE POSTAGE COSTS. PLEASE REMEMBER TO LET US KNOW IF YOU CHANGE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. COPIES OF THE NEWSLETTER ARE ALSO AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE www.wildcamels.com

Thank you once again for all your generous and highly valued support.

Yours faithfully,


John Hare FRGS
Founder and Chairman of the WCPF