Panamanian Camels

[ducey99]

A work collegue of mine insists there are wild camels roaming around the Panama canal region. The rest of us think he's nuts! Someone please put us out of our misery and confirm one way or the other.

[Lonnie]

As I understand it, the only wild Camels nowadays, are in Australia, descendents of escapees. Hopefully somone else will corroberate this.

[Quizmonster]

One meaning of the word 'camel' is a machine for adding buoyancy to vessels to enable them to cross shallow areas. It consists of water-tight chests with plugs and pumps. Water flows in to sink the chests into position, and they are then braced against the sides of the vessel. On pumping out the water, the camels rise, bringing the ship up, too.
Such 'camels' are, I understand, used in the Panama Canal, so I wonder whether your colleague may be mistaking these for the creatures of the same name.
As a matter of interest, 'real' camels were brought in to the area to be beasts of burden in the 1850s, but they proved ineffective, perhaps because of the nature of the terrain. I suppose it is just about possible that some of their descendants remain, but I'd think it unlikely.

[noxlumos]

I did actually hear the same thing as your work colleague some time ago but I'm damned if I can remember where, as, happily, Camels are of no interest to me.

I'll rack my brains ( so won't take long) and see if I can remember. I have to say though I have no idea if it's true, but I do recall hearing it somewhwre.

[sddsddean]

Went through the canal Nov 03 and didn't see any! Can't think that the terrain is right for a (animal) camel, and can't say I saw any of QM's flotation devices (which of course doesn't mean they weren't there!). There are mules however. This is the name given to the locomotives that guide the ships through the locks. Here is a pic of one http://www.mindspring.com/~link.to.travel/panama/Mule3.jpg

[Mudman]

During the first attempts to make passage through Panama by a French engineer. Camels were, in fact, used for a time. The Central American weather brought terrible conditions to the workforce and constant landslides eventually halted work on the canal.

It was thought that because of the camels ability to cross soft sand with heavy loads that it would be suited for mud. I'm not sure what the outcome was but whatever happened. It's not too unbelievable that there may be some still in Panama.

[yogibear]

I don't know if there are any wild camels living in south america but the vicuna,alpaca and the llama are all native to south america and they are members of the camel family