Watch: Camel becomes jealous on seeing the owner standing with another
‘She has been close to me since she was born. When I call her name, she comes along’
Cairo: The camel Sulta is not like other any other, her owner contends.
“She has been close to me since the day she was born. She knows her name. When I call her name, she comes along. She becomes jealous if I stands with another,” Saudi camel owner Ahmed Al Tiwajiri said.
He told Saudi news television Al Ekhbariya that they share a special relationship.
Recalling his years in the business, Al Tiwajiri said he had walked in the field as an amateur, not an investor.
“But as days passed and due to the unlimited support from the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, this sector has become an investment sector of the highest calibre. This field generates a high return,” he added.
The camel has long been dubbed as the “ship of the desert”, being the lifeline for desert dwellers. Saudi Arabia annually hosts the King Abdul Aziz Camel Festival, a flagship pageant.
The festival has become a major cultural, tourist, entertainment and economic event with its competitions and concomitant activities that attract fans from the region and around the world.
Around 1.8 million fans last year flocked to the event that ran for 45 days, according to officials.
In June, Saudi Arabia’s first provincial camel festival, staged in the northern city of Tabuk, wrapped up with sales surpassing SR29 million. That pageant marked the first in a series planned by the Saudi Camel Club to promote the Arabian camel heritage in different parts of the kingdom.
In recent years, the camel business has remarkably grown in the kingdom. There are around 1.8 million camels with a market value of over SR50 billion in Saudi Arabia, according to official figures.
