from “Celebrate Earth Day at Whitfield with super-cool camels” by Teresa de Cherif, Valencia County News-Bulletin, March 27, 2025
Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District will host special guests at its Earth Day Celebration at Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area — camels!
On April 18-19, the district is offering this unique opportunity to learn about the ability of camels to survive in semi-arid and arid lands and the history of camels here in the Middle Rio Grande.
Camels will arrive on the banks of our great river (Rio Grande) for the second time in history this coming April. Their first visit to this area was with the U.S. Army Camel Corps expedition of 1857-1858, led by Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale. His mission was to test the suitability of camels for transportation across the southwest.
“And be it further enacted, that the sum of $30,000 be, and the same is hereby appropriated under the direction of the War Department in the purchase and importation of camels and dromedaries to be employed for military purposes.”
In May 1855, the U.S. Navy offered a store ship, the USS Supply, to transport camels to the United States. In this manner, 70 camels from Egypt and Tunisia traveled from their port of disembarkation in Texas to Fort Tejon, Calif. En route, the camels made four stops within the boundaries of today’s Valencia SWCD. Their first stop was in La Joya, followed by a location slightly north of Belen, Connelly’s General Store in Peralta and a priest’s home in Isleta.
Whitfield Wildlife Conservation Area may well have been the site where the U.S. Army Camel Corps made camp on Aug. 7, 1857, as the land was a known parada along the Camino Real (King’s Highway) that connected Spanish settlements and missions from Mexico City to today’s Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh in northern New Mexico.
Valencia SWCD invites the public to this historic re-enactment of the U.S. Army Camel Corps visit along the Middle Rio Grande on the afternoon of Friday, April 18, and all day on Saturday, April 19. Guests will interact with historian, musician and camel expert Doug Baum and his Texas Camel Corps, featuring both dromedaries and Bactrian camels!
Dressed in the U.S. Army uniform of 1857, Doug Baum has made many appearances to national park sites and monuments that were known homes and restina places for the 1857-58 camel crew, including El Morro National Monument near Ramah and Fort Davis in Texas. During his first visit to Whitfield on the banks of the Rio Grande, Doug will not mind if children call him “Lt. Doug Beale.”
During camel visitation to Whitfield, folks will also learn about the adaptations camels have made to endure rough climates, since first emerging in North America approximately 44 million years ago. The precursors of today’s camels, which entered the fossil record between 4 and 3 million years ago, was Camelops hesternus.
This American camel was first described by American paleontologist Joseph Leidin in 1854. As Camelops ranged from northern Canada and Alaska to Mexico, it might be more accurate to describe this April’s Camel Corps visit to Whitfield as the third time in history that camels have moved across the New Mexican landscape.
“Lieutenant Doug” and his camels will reveal how these resilient and hardy creatures survive in desert climates and play a vital role in their ecosystems. Visitors can learn about the particular features that allow camels to live in extreme environments — both hot and cold.
They will learn how the leathery pads on the feet, knees, elbows and sternum allow camels to glide along and even lie down on scorching sand. Folks can see camels close their nostrils and observe their double rows of eyelashes, both of which help them navigate through sandstorms. The public will also understand how camels and their camelid cousins (alpacas, guanacos, llamas and vicuñas) still provide transportation, food and wool for millions of people across 90 countries on Earth.
At this Earth Day Camel Celebration, children who complete the Whitfield Ranger booklet will earn prizes. Visitors can remember the event by purchasing commemorative T-shirts.
