The creatures are endemic to the Outback, where they are generally regarded as pests.

Professor Johnson said camels could help to fill the niche left vacant by the disappearance on Australia’s megafauna 40,000 years ago.

He said the use of large introduced herbivores to manage today’s environment was worth considering.

“We can tell there were significant numbers of megafauna and they made a significant impact on plants because we’ve still got lots of plants that were adapted to resist browsing by large animals - like acacias with spines or tangled structures that make it hard for animals to take mouthfuls,” Professor Johnson said.

“You can make a case that we still need large herbivores in the Australian environment and they could help to control things like wildfire.

“Camels are being used in North Queensland to control certain woody weeds. They will eat those spiny woody things that practically nothing else will eat.”

Mount Isa man Paul Keegan owns about 150 camels and said camels were an effective method of weed control.

“The’ll certainly get rid of tall the prickly stuff and the noxious weeds,” he said.

“It can be like a rainforest in some places with prickly acacia and camels could certainly help with that.”

Mr Keegan said it was a myth that camels were bad for the environment; they do not have hard hooves like horses or cattle.

“They’re flat footed so they don’t hurt anything,” he said.

Not everyone thinks so highly of camels.

South Australia-based NorthWest Carbon last year submitted a proposal to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency to have camel culls approved as a carbon farming initiative activity.

Under the scheme, accredited marksmen will shoot camels from helicopters or muster the animals to a point where they can be transported to an abattoir for slaughter.