A group of Australian travelers became anxious and uneasy after finding strange footprints at their remote outback campsite.
Michelle Gilmore and her family noticed the marks in the red dirt when they arrived at the site in East Warakurna, near the Western Australia-Northern Territory border last week.
They finally realized that the perfectly circular footprints belonged to a flock of camels they had seen along the way.
While Gilmore and his partner had a caravan to sleep in, his mother, brother and sister-in-law were “nervous” that the camels would return and trample their tents.
The group had seen “many wild animals” as they approached the camp from Curtin Springs, where they spent the previous night more than 300 kilometers to the east.
The trio set up their tents “leaning against a tree to be safe from the camels.”
Another camper at the former site said he had recently been “awakened in the middle of the night by a stampede of camels near his truck,” Ms. Gilmore recalled in a Facebook mail
The campers feared they would be trampled after seeing these circular footprints in their camp, which belonged to a flock of camels that roamed the area.
The family’s chilling encounter unfolded during a 70-day camping trip through “central Australia.”
More than 300,000 wild camels are believed to roam the Australian outback.
They were first imported to Australia from India and Afghanistan during the 1840s as beasts of burden for exploration and development in arid areas.
By the 20th century more than 4,500 had been introduced into Western and Central Australia for use in goldfields during the gold rush.
A rapidly growing feral population began to spread in the early 20th century, after they were casually released when motorized transport became more popular.
Michelle Gilmore and her family were terrified when they saw footprints around their campsite.
The Western Australian government declared feral camels agricultural pests in 2007, as their grazing causes serious damage to the local environment.
They also compete directly for food with native animals, such as kangaroos and possums, and digest many previously unpredated plants.
During dry conditions, camels are also known to be aggressive towards sheep, cattle and other animals and deprive them of water.