KEY POINTS:
Aborigines in Australia's arid desert interior have hit on an innovative way of tackling the boredom and substance abuse which have ravaged so many of their communities - hunting camels.
Where their forbears pursued traditional prey such as kangaroos and monitor lizards, the younger generation is heading into
the scrub to shoot plentiful one-humped dromedaries.
The camels were brought to Australia in the 19th century from what was then British India as beasts of burden to haul supplies for explorers, pioneers and prospectors.
They became redundant with the advent of railways and motor cars and thousands were released into the wild.
They have adapted to Australian conditions extraordinarily well and are now considered a pest, with around a million roaming the Outback, mostly in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Biologists say the population is doubling every eight years.
In the remote outpost of Kintore, a six-hour drive west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, Aboriginal teenagers venture into the desert once a week in search of feral camels.
Firearms licences are hard to get so the camels are mostly shot by one of the town's three police officers, who accompany the hunting expeditions.
"The first time we went out, we got three camels - two big ones and one small one," said Farren Marks, 19, who like many young men in the community has no job and spends much of the day listening to American gangster rap music. "It makes me happy to go out hunting because I can bring back meat for my family."
Like many isolated Aboriginal settlements, Kintore offers few jobs and almost no recreational opportunities. Boredom and frustration drive teenagers to crime, alcohol, marijuana and petrol sniffing - a habit which can leave addicts wheelchair-bound or dead.
The camel-hunting initiative - which started six months ago - has injected hope into the outpost's disaffected youth.
So far around 15 animals have been shot and slaughtered by a shifting group of around 20 hunters, the youngest just 13.
"The young fellas are pretty good at tracking the camels," said Tom Holyoake, a white youth worker tasked with preventing substance abuse in the town of 300 people.
"When they find a camel they shoot it, butcher it in the field, bring the meat back and share it with their families.
"There are environmental benefits because camels are an introduced species which are over-grazing the desert, and health benefits because the meat is very lean." So numerous are the dromedaries that the hunters rarely have to search for more than an hour before they come across a herd.
Despite there being so many camels Aborigines had in the past been reluctant to hunt them because of religious beliefs.
Many older indigenous people, educated in Christian mission schools, came to regard the animals as sacred because camels bore the Three Wise Men to see baby Jesus.
"The elders had to check whether it was okay to eat camel.
"Now that it's been approved, people grab the meat as quick as they can and go off and start cooking dinner," said Holyoake.
Camels are seen as a growing threat to desert ecosystems and Outback cattle properties because they foul waterholes and barge through wire fences.
Some states have opted for culling by helicopter; others are studying the viability of exporting live camels to the Middle East for their meat, or turning them into pet food.
