Abstract:

In the past, camels were used as transport, pack, ride, war, food, and sport animal by Turks.Camel rearing must have been more than 4.000 years of time period in Turks because some archaeological evidences showed that camel wrestling events have beenorganized by Turks for about 4.000 years. After industrialization and modernization since 20th century, camel lost their importance and nowadays they are only a sport and tourism material in Turkey. Hence, the camel population in Turkey decreased in number of about 1.000 recently. The camel population is mostly used for camel wrestling events in West Anatolia. The camel wrestling events are organized about in 60-70 different places annually during winter season. Wrestling events are held on Sundays and watchedby not only men spectators but also women and children. Although camel wrestling equipment, accessories, ornaments, wages of take carers, transport for wrestling from city to city, accommodation, catering are quite expensive, camel owners are not so rich people, but low or middle income people. Because of those reasons, both camel owners and camel wrestling associations should be supported by the state in order for this custom to be survived