Saudi Arabia launches passports for kingdom’s beloved camels

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has announced plans to issue passports to the kingdom’s millions of camels, to help better manage the country’s prized herds.

The ministry of the environment, water and agriculture promised the initiative would enhance the “productivity and efficiency in the sector and build a reliable reference database for camels”.

A social media post from the ministry on Tuesday included a picture of the document: a green passport stamped with the country’s coat of arms and a golden image of a camel.

The passport will “contribute to organising sales and trading operations by regulating commerce and transport, ensuring official documentation, protecting owners’ rights, and facilitating proof of ownership,” according state-backed broadcaster Al Ekhbariya.

In 2024, the government estimated there were around 2.2 million camels in the kingdom.

Camels have long been a vital mode of transportation in Arabia, conferring status on their owners and fuelling the rise of a lucrative breeding industry.

The kingdom also hosts beauty contests for camels at annual festivals, where Saudi enthusiasts spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on animal contestants — and the unscrupulous sometimes seek an illegal advantage.

Organisers have in recent years cracked down on cosmetic enhancements, a malpractice that has thrived amid stiff competition and despite heavy penalties.

Methods to make the camels’ lips droopier and their humps more shapely are particularly frowned upon by the authorities who want to encourage a natural look.

Camels have been essential to life on the Arabian peninsula for millennia, with research published in 2021 suggesting life-sized carvings of camels and horses hewn into rock faces in Saudi Arabia could be around 7,000 years old.