Zurich Zoo sends four camels to a new home in Thurgau

Zurich Zoo has moved four camels to a private camel farm in Olmerswil, in the canton of Thurgau, where they will have more space and join a larger herd, SRF reported.

The camels left the zoo on Friday. Staff brushed them before the journey, and the transport team made two trips because there was not enough room for all four animals at once.

“It is beautiful and sad at the same time,” keeper Franziska Dreier said. She said it was difficult to part with animals she had cared for over many years, but she was glad they had found a suitable new home. Dreier said she felt especially close to Oona, a calm and easy-to-handle camel she had cared for as a young animal during her apprenticeship and later at Zurich Zoo.

At the farm, the new arrivals were introduced gradually to the existing herd so the animals could get used to one another.

The move is part of a broader change to the zoo’s animal collection. By 2030, it plans to keep only animals threatened in the wild or important to research and conservation programmes. Other species that are not threatened, including the camels and later the seals, are to leave. The zoo plans to give their space to threatened species such as the golden takin from the Himalayas.