JEDDAH, 11 September 2007 — Saudi Arabia has called off camel beauty contests scheduled for later this month against the backdrop of the mystery deaths of thousands of the animals that are a national icon in the Kingdom.
Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal took the decision to stop such contests in the Makkah region in the face of the mounting death toll in a national herd estimated at 862,000 animals in 2005, the Al-Watan daily reported yesterday.
Prince Khaled’s decision covered the camel beauty contest of Subaie Al-Ghalaba tribe, which was scheduled to be held after the Eid Al-Fitr holidays.
Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman had earlier ordered postponement of a similar contest of the Wadi Al-Dawasser tribe in an expression of solidarity with farmers who had lost their camels.
In Saudi Arabia, camels are often referred to by the Arabic word mazaen (beauties) and can fetch more than one million riyals ($266,000) a head.
The paper said that Agriculture Minister Fahd Balghunaim was not ruling out a “criminal dimension” to the deaths, which the Saudi media have described as a “national tragedy.” The minister told the paper that inquiries were now focusing on the agricultural antibiotic salinomycin which tests have detected in fodder given to some of the dead animals. In some countries, salinomycin is added to the feed given to ruminants to improve their absorption of nutrients.
But in the European Union the addition of anti-microbial growth promoters has been banned since last year.
Balghunaim described the antibiotic’s presence in the camel feed as “strange” and said his ministry would give the results of the laboratory tests to the competent authorities so they could investigate how and why it had been added.
At least 2,000 animals have died over the past month, according to ministry figures. An AFP count based on press reports suggest at least 5,000 animals have died and thousands more have fallen sick.
The ministry said on Saturday that laboratory tests carried out in both Saudi Arabia and abroad had detected toxic traces of both aluminum and an unspecified fungus.
— Additional input from AFP
