Keepers at a beloved wildlife park are celebrating several new arrivals to the collection, including a female Bactrian Camel calf.

Mammal Keeper Willemijn Koch took photos moments after Elsa, the female camel, gave birth to her calf and captured on video the first time the newborn got up on her ungainly legs.

Visitors can see the new arrival in the large paddock she shares with the rest of the her. The adults are currently going through their annual moult.

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The wild Bactrian Camel is classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is thought to be one of the rarest large mammals on earth.

The humped hikers were considered extinct in the wild until an expedition in 1957 sighted a small herd on the Mongolian slopes of the Altai Mountains.

Today, it is believed that fewer than 1,000 wild Bactrian Camels exist. According to the IUCN, they are facing a population decline of at least 80 per cent in the next three generations.

Cotswold Wildlife Park supports the Wild Camel Protection Foundation http://www.wildcamels.com.

The charity’s aim is to protect the critically endangered wild camel and its habitat in the fragile and unique desert ecosystems in the Gobi desert in north-west China and south-west Mongolia.

It is the only charitable environmental foundation in the world which has this exclusive objective.

The Park recently ran a competition on its social media inviting people to help name the new Bactrian Camel baby.

The winning name was suggested by visitor Leanne who was at the park the day the calf was born. She said: "It was my daughter Amber's birthday and this is why we came. She would love the camel to be named after her.

“We literally missed her birth by seconds."

They did however manage to witness mum Elsa encouraging the newborn to get up for the first time and said it was an "amazing thing to watch.”

Other new arrivals include prairie dog pups, a ring-tailed lemur baby named Charlie and a tiny kirk's dik-dik calf.

A spokesperson for Cotswold Wildlife Park said: “It's the second calf our dik-dik adults have produced this year. Keepers are sticking with a nut-themed name for the newborn and this week, the as-yet-unsexed calf has been called Pecan (the first calf born earlier this year was named Cashew). Their enclosure is in the Little Africa exhibit.”

Throughout August, the park will be hosting a ‘rhino month’ to raise awareness and funds for rhino conservation work in Africa.

During 'rhino month', Cotswold Wildlife Park will be highlighting the plight of rhinos in the wild and why conservation work is vital for their future.

 

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This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1