Working camels across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia provide essential transport and livelihoods but face welfare challenges from overloading, poor nutrition, and inadequate veterinary care.
Working camel welfare shares many features with working donkey and horse welfare: economic dependence creates genuine common interest in healthy animals, yet poverty limits investment in equipment, veterinary care, and nutrition that would prevent the most common welfare problems. Saddle sores from poorly fitted equipment are almost entirely preventable through better design and fitting, but both the knowledge and resources to do so are often unavailable to herders and transporters who rely on camels. The transition in Gulf racing from child jockeys to robotic jockeys represents a genuine welfare improvement driven by international pressure, demonstrating that camel welfare can be improved when economic and social incentives align. The growing dairy camel sector creates an opportunity to establish welfare standards before poor practices become entrenched, as happened in dairy cattle and goat sectors.