A female Bactrian camel stands out from her wild Mongolian herd. She sports a tan, leather collar. Last October, researchers installed the tracking device on this two-humped native of the Asian desert steppe. She represents one of the three species of remaining wild camelids in the world. Only 1,500 to 3,000 of the enigmatic Camelus bactrianus ferus roam Mongolia and China. These animals therefore recently received protection from the Convention on Migratory Species (SN: 10/12/02, p. 237: Rare animals get U.N. protection).
On the other side of the world, wild camelids called vicua are a little further from the brink of extinction but still objects of conservation biologists’ concerns. The number of Vicugna vicugna in the species’ native countries–Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Ecuador–dropped from 2 million in Incan times to around 10,000 in the 1960s.