“Every camel has a story,” & so does the Bassi Camel Rescue Centre

(Beth Clifton collage)

Camel Rescue Centre in the Rajasthan desert has now been operating for half a camel’s 50-year lifespan 

           JAIPUR, India––“Every camel has a story,”  Camel Rescue Centre veterinarian Abhinav Swani told Indian freelance writer Aparna Vats who recited several of the stories to introduce a March 13,  2025 media release celebrating––she thought––the 14th anniversary of the debut of the Camel Rescue Centre in Bassi,  India.

Bassi is 20 miles southwest of the renowned Amer Fort in Jaipur,  colloquially known as the “Amber Fort,”  the 300-year-old capital of Rajasthan built in 1699 when Jaipur was hub of a regional empire.

“Ranu was abandoned,  blind and helpless,”  Vat wrote.  “Blackie was rescued from smugglers.  Rani spent years performing in a circus.  Martin,  left lame from an injury,  was no longer wanted.”

(Beth Clifton collage)

Wandered in the desert for 14 years before finding a home

But just as every camel has a story,  the Camel Rescue Centre has a much longer and more colorful story than fit into just a brief media release.

The Camel Rescue Centre was indeed established in Bassi in 2011,  as Vats reported,  by the Jaipur humane society Help In Suffering.

But the camel aid project itself is ancestrally 25 years old,  operating as a mobile clinic for fourteen years before gaining a permanent address.

Crystal Rogers,  founder of Animals’ Friend, Help In Suffering, & CUPA.

Crystal Rogers

The umbrella organization for the Camel Rescue Center,  Help In Suffering,  was the second in a string of outpatient animal clinics and rescue shelters established by Crystal Rogers,  1906-1996,  nominally an Englishwoman,  but an almost lifelong resident of India.

Emigrating to India with her parents at age six in 1912,  Rogers initially did animal rescue as a mobile canteen driver with the Gurkha Regiment,  raised in Nepal,  during World War II.

Rogers founded her first humane organization,  Animals’ Friend,  in Delhi,  in 1959––the same year in which the Blue Cross of India debuted,  on the far side of the country.

(See Animal welfare history in Madras/Chennai & why it matters to the world.)

Christine Townend.
(University of Sydney photo)

Christine Townend

Ousted from Animals’ Friend by a board coup in 1978,  Rogers,  already age 72,  relocated to Jaipur,  where she founded and directed the first Help In Suffering clinic and shelter from 1978 to 1991, when she turned the facilities over to Australian author and animal advocate Christine Townend.

Retiring in 2008,  Townend was succeeded by English veterinarian Jack Reese,   who was in turn succeeded by present managing trustee Timmie Kumar.

Rogers,  meanwhile,  at age 85,  founded Compassion Unlimited Plus Action [CUPA] in Bangalore.

Maneka Gandhi.
(Beth Clifton collage)

Distinguished alumni

Among the young volunteers and visitors Rogers whom influenced at her three shelters were Geeta Seshamani, who founded the Friendicoes humane society in Delhi in 1979 and,  with the now legendary wildlife rescuer Kartick Satyanarayan,  in 1997 cofounded the Wildlife SOS string of sanctuaries for former dancing bears and working elephants.

There was also Maneka Gandhi,  who founded the national animal advocacy organization People for Animals in 1992;  the actress Amala Akkineni,  founder of the Blue Cross of Hyderabad; and Rogers’ eventual successors at CUPA,  Suparna Ganguly,  Sheila Rao,  and Sanober Bharucha.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Townend made the camel project a priority

Rogers’ shelters,  in her own time,  lacked the capacity to treat camels very often.

But as the veterinarian Abhinav Swani explained to Aparna Vat,  “Many camels have worked in extreme conditions for years.  Others are abandoned once they are no longer useful.  Our work gives them a second chance at life.”

For that reason Townend,  who opposed government massacres of feral camels in Australia both before and after her Indian stint,  made starting the camel project a personal priority.

“The Camel Rescue Centre provides critical medical care for working camels—those used in transport,  brick kilns,  and tourism,”  Aparna Vats recited,  treating “250-350 camels every month, offering emergency care and long-term rehabilitation.”

(Camel Rescue Center photo)

“5,000 to 7,000” camels per year

In addition to the camels seen by veterinarians at the Camel Rescue Centre,  Help In Suffering provides care without charge to from “5,000 to 7,000 camels through mobile clinics,”  Help In Suffering managing trustee Timmie Kumar told Vats,  “reaching remote areas where medical services are scarce.  Help In Suffering also conducts annual treatment camps at major camel hubs like Pushkar,  Jaisalmer,  and Nagaur,”  where rough dirt roads cross stretches of the Rajasthan desert that are difficult even for heavy trucks.

“Beyond medical care,”  Vats continued, “Help In Suffering has introduced humane welfare measures such as replacing wooden nose pegs,”  to which camels’ reins are attached,  “with gentler plastic alternatives,  fitting over 1,000 camel carts with reflectors to prevent accidents,  and conducting regular deworming programs for 2,000 camels annually.

(Beth Clifton collage)

“Camels are their livelihood”

“For many families,”   Vats explained,  “camels are their livelihood,  yet without proper veterinary care,  these animals suffer from preventable illnesses and injuries.”

The Help In Suffering camel project debuted with a mobile unit,  staffed by veterinarian Devi Shankar Rajoria and British volunteer vets Richard and Emma Morris.

Later headed by Pradeep Singhal,  DMV,  the Camel Project was initially funded by Animaux Secours of France,  the Marchig Trust of Swtizerland,  and the Carpenter Trust of Britain.

The Camel Rescue Centre was funded by a second Swiss organization,  the ELSU Foundation.

Camel racing in Dubai.

The Dubai Camel Hospital

When the Camel Rescue Centre opened on March 13,  2011,  it became the first humane society facility built specifically to help camels,  and only the second dedicated camel hospital in the world.

The first,  which initially had a very different purpose,  was the Dubai Camel Hospital, opened in 1990 by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum to treat the 3,000 racing and dairy camels “belonging to the Maktoum family and their friends and relatives,” wrote BBC News science reporter Anna-Marie Lever in January 2009.

By then,  after almost 20 years in service,  the Dubai Camel Hospital workload had expanded to include treating “4,000 breeding camels,  2,000 racing camels,  and doing research into common afflictions,” founding veterinarian Jahangir Akbar told Zac Sharpe of the Dubai periodical Al Shindagah.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Typical camel injuries

“Young camels tend to suffer from sore shins and damaged knee joints;  older camels are admitted for lameness and arthritis,”  Akbar said.

Noted Lever,  “Respiratory complaints caused by infection are also common,  as are gastric problems,  because trainers push carbohydrate down their camels in an attempt to give them more energy to race,  leading to acidosis.”

Paradoxically,  the three most prominent European animal welfare organizations helping working horses,  mules,  and donkeys in the Middle East,  Central Asia,  and India,  all headquartered in Britain,  have done relatively little for camels.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Equine aid organizations ignore camels

The Brooke Hospital for Animals,  founded in Cairo,  Egypt,  by Dorothy Brooke in 1934,  and The Donkey Sanctuary,  founded in England in 1969,  expanding into the Middle East in 1986,  later adding facilities in Kenya and India,  have never had camel programs.

The Society for Protection of Animals in North Africa,  founded in 1923 by self-taught homeopathic veterinarian Kate Hosali and her daughter Nina,  has always treated camels––but quietly,  focusing a caseload mostly of horses.

As camel racing is not popular in Rajasthan,  Help In Suffering sees mostly cart-pulling camels.

But Help In Suffering does see many of the same injuries and symptoms of overuse familiar to the Dubai Camel Hospital staff.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Undoing harm done by folk remedies

Much of the work of the Camel Rescue Centre also involves undoing the harm done to working camels by folk remedies,  and educating the camel drivers against using them,  regardless of tradition.

“For example,”  explains the Camel Rescue Centre web site,  “a common method of treating throat and cold infections,  or lameness,  has been to inflict a deep burn by means of an iron rod applied to the skin of the affected area,”  which “is not only useless but can threaten the life of the camel.”

The Camel Rescue Centre team also sees a lot of colic,  “commonly caused by lack of drinking water,   poor quality fodder mixed with large amounts of sand,  or by intestinal parasites.  Skin conditions caused by ticks and mites are common,”  says the web site.

More difficult afflictions to treat include tryapanosomiasis,  caused by a blood parasite,  and lameness and foot injuries.  Foot and leg problems are especially common when camels,  who have soft padded feet rather than hooves,  are worked on paved roads.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Nose pegs

The most frequent problem that the Camel Rescue Centre sees,  however,  is that “Camels have traditionally been controlled in India by wooden nose pegs inserted through the external nares,  to which the reins are attached.  Friction caused by the nose peg results in suppurating,  non-healing wounds which attract flies,  becoming infested with maggots.  Parts of the nose and face can then be eaten away.”

The Camel Rescue Centre,  as Vats explained,  has enjoyed some success in promoting the use of smooth plastic nose pegs instead of wooden pegs,  and in introducing longer pegs,  to prevent the peg ends from chafing the camels’ noses.

In only three years,  from March 2002 to March 2005,  replacing wooden pegs with plastic pegs cut the number of nose peg injuries among camels treated by half.

(Beth Clifton collage)

Preventive medicine

The greatest part of the Camel Rescue Centre workload is preventive. The first 37,350 treatments included deworming 15,500 camels, and affixing 11,000 reflectors on camel carts to keep motor vehicles from colliding with them at night.

Though Help In Suffering is apparently still the only Indian humane society with a full-time camel clinic,  partly because camels are not commonly used beyond the Rajasthan desert,  many other humane societies aid camels when they can.

The Blue Cross of Hyderabad,  for instance,  treats about 30 camels per year.

Amit Deol.

Sirohi camel project may have died with founder

Inspired by the Camel Rescue Centre,   a man named Amit Deol in 1998 founded a People for Animals chapter in Sirohi,  about 250 miles to the southwest on the far side of Rajasthan,  focused on camel aid.

Sirohi is situated approximately halfway from Jaipur to Ahmedabad,  the capital city of modern Rajasthan,  at the intersection with the road to Udaipur,  the next biggest city in the region––probably the most active camel crossroads in India.

Deol also took in injured and abandoned camels,  eventually hosting as many as 400,  news reports mentioned,  on 34 square kilometers leased from the state forest department.

Beth & Merritt Clifton, editors, ANIMALS 24-7.

Deol died,  however,  on July 23,  2022,  at age 46,  from complications of hepatitis.

The Facebook page for the People for Animals camel project at Sirohi has not been updated since Deol’s death.  Whether anything remains of Deol’s camel project is unclear.

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