News in frames: Kutch’s dwindling camel population
The camel population in Gujarat's Kutch district is in sharp decline due to industrialization, habitat loss, and grazing restrictions. Local herders warn that the species may vanish from the region within a decade, noting that they struggle to earn a fair price for camel milk despite its high market value in medicinal products.
Why it matters
The decline of the camel population highlights the tension between industrial development and the preservation of traditional livelihoods and biodiversity.
K utch, in Gujarat, was once home to thousands of camels that roamed its forests and the Greater Rann, a salt marsh in the Thar Desert. Today, the animals are becoming increasingly scarce, their numbers shrinking amid industrialisation, the loss of habitats and restrictions on grazing.
The decline is evident at the annual Bhed Mata Camel Fair at Kotda-Chakar, about 35 km from Bhuj, where the number of camels has fallen dramatically over the decades. “Kutch is famous for its Greater Rann, and the Rann’s symbolic animal is the camel,” says Hiralal Balwa, a veteran artist and pictorial photographer from Bhuj.
He began attending the fair in the early 1980s and continued until the late 1990s. “There were thousands of camels,” he says, “so many that you could not find space to park a two-wheeler. This year, I saw fewer than 200 at the fair.”
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