Ghost Camels is a term that refers to either wild or feral camels sighted in the United States from an unknown biological origin or urban legends. Stories tell that in the modern age there are camels wandering the south western USA. The most famous occurrences are of the "Red Ghost" which was first encountered in 1883 but dromedary camels have been reported in America as early as the 1700s when a sea captain, Crowninshield, first brought a male and female camel to Salem, Massachusetts. Later camels were endorsed by some politicians to be used in explorations and travel through the American West by the US Military as camels could go longer with less water in such dry conditions than mules and horses.
As the years went by the Civil War broke out and it is believed that the camels the troops used at the forts in the south western United States simply wandered away when the outposts where abandoned due to the battles in the east requiring more soldiers.
Are there Wild Camels today?[]
Some believe that camels can still be found deep in the deserts of Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and even Texas, however no official reports have been found of feral camels breeding or existing without a handler in the US since the early 20th Century when sightings of roaming camels were somewhat common.
The Original Home of the Camel[]
The Camelidae family originated in North America during the Eocene Epoch. Camels existed in North America until the end of the Pleistocene era some 11 thousand years ago, dying out with the mammoth and the horse, along with other large Pleistocene megafauna. Around 3-5 million years ago camels migrated across the Bering Strait into Eurasia, to where they exist today. Is it possible that camel encounters today are not actually dromedary camels but modern day descendants of the ancient North American camels?
Sources[]
https://www.desertusa.com/animals/desert-camel-experiment.html
https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/feral-camels-terrorized-wild-west
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/whatever-happened-wild-camels-american-west-180956176/
http://paleosleuths.org/camels.html