It was 1988. The gruelling 3300km outback Great Australian Camel Race was in crisis. For months it had been hampered by unseasonal rains and vehicles, and camels were bogged in the mud. When dysentery spread through the camp, people dropped like flies. Race veterinarian, Dr Alex Tinson, was thrust into the role of race director – a mammoth task on the longest-ever animal endurance race. Less than half the camels and riders crossed the finish line but, in the midst of the chaos, Alex met his destiny.
He was downing a beer in an outback pub when in walked legendary NSW Central Coast horse trainer, the late Heath Harris, who’d worked on Aussie movies such as Breaker Morant, Phar Lap and The Man from Snowy River. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince wanted “the world’s best camel vet” to improve the speed and performance of his racing stock. Publicity around the Aussie camel race had put Alex into the spotlight and Heath felt he fitted the bill. Alex recalls ruefully that his experience “having anaesthetised two camels, castrated six and been in charge of the race” left him well short of being ‘best in the world’.
He was then 33. After graduating from The University of Melbourne, in 1977, his childhood passion for wildlife had led him to the now-closed Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari Park, north-west of Melbourne. The park housed lions, tigers and other exotic animals, and a lack of adequate medical equipment forced improvisation on Alex who once had to cart a young lion in his car across town for an X-ray. “It was a bit gung-ho, a bit chaotic and lots of the unexpected,” he says.
These days Alex can rightfully claim the world’s leading camel vet title. During the past 36 years, he’s pioneered many scientific achievements in camel reproduction and, in the process, has led a fascinating life in the Arabian Desert. The UAE is a wealthy, oil-rich, desert kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula comprising seven emirates (states). “I was completely overwhelmed,” he recalls of his arrival in Abu Dhabi, the largest and wealthiest of the emirates. “I’d never been out of Australia. At the lavish welcome feast, white-robed men smoked shisha pipes and a leashed mountain lion strode through the throng.”
Working with two fellow Aussie vets, Alex set up the Scientific Centre for Racing Camel Research, at Hili, north of the oasis town of Al Ain. The camels of Crown Prince Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan (later UAE president and ruler, until his 2022 death), ranked well down the racing league. Alex soon realised the goal was not only to win the lavish cash prizes on offer or the coveted Golden Sword. “In the Arabian Desert,” he says, “whoever owned the fastest racing camels held the prestige of all the tribal clans.”
Alex treated camels in desert camps, drank qawa (coffee) with Bedu trainers, learned Arabic and gained the respect of the sheikhs. “We had an open canvas,” he says. “They hadn’t used technology in training – not even a stopwatch – so we brought in treadmills, blood-testing and the latest research.” Soon, with improved nutrition, training and breeding, the Crown Prince’s racing stable triumphed over the league. In the process of breeding faster camels, Alex pioneered several camel reproduction world milestones; first camel calf born from embryo transfer, first calf born from a frozen embryo and first identical twin calves born from embryo bisection. In 2021, the crowning glory of his scientific achievements was the birth of a batch of cloned camel calves from the frozen cells of a long-dead donor called Mabrokan – an impressive 1000kg bull that in ‘show stance’ towered three metres above his handlers. He was so renowned for his beauty that when he died he was sent to Paris to be preserved and his taxidermied body is now on permanent display in the foyer of the UAE Ministry of Presidential Affairs.
When Mabrokan died in 2010, it was also decided to preserve some of his tissue. “It was the height of summer, with temperatures above 50oC, which made the collection and preservation of tissue sub-optimal,” Alex says. “But some testicular tissue and skin was harvested and preserved in liquid nitrogen at -196oC in the hope they might be viable.” Expectations rose when Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, founded the UAE Biotech Research Centre in Abu Dhabi and the team was joined by South Korean scientist Professor Hwang Woo-suk, creator of the world’s first cloned dog who is interested in resurrecting the woolly mammoth. Mabrokan’s tissue samples had been in suspended animation for 10 years until they were examined by Prof Hwang but, against the odds, the skin samples contained viable cells. Now Alex oversees natural breeding, egg collection and embryo transfer operations at the Hili centre and Prof Hwang conducts the cloning procedure in its state-of-the-art lab. The cloning involves somatic cell nuclear transfer: the DNA of a surrogate egg is removed and replaced with a donor cell (in this case, from Mabrokan’s frozen skin), a micro-pulse of electricity activates the egg to divide, and resulting embryos are implanted into surrogate female camels. In 2021, 11 cloned calves all identical to Mabrokan were born and now thrive in their desert home.
Channelling grief
Alex is charismatic; a witty raconteur. His home in the UAE is an Aladdin’s cave of Arabian antiques, bronze-studded chests and Persian rugs. He enjoys fine food, finer wines and drives a Ferrari. Despite his professional success, Alex has suffered great personal tragedy, having lost two daughters to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. In 1986, nine-week-old Anya spent three days on life support before dying in his arms. Three years later, while Alex and first wife, Patti, were settling in to the UAE, nine-month-old Natalia was found lifeless in her cot. “I was numb with disbelief,” Alex says. “What are the odds of losing not just one but two babies?”
In the interests of their other two young daughters, Katya and Erica, the couple put on a brave face. “We elected not to look into the chasm of despair beneath us,” Alex says. “I think subconsciously I had a morbid dread that I could completely unravel if I allowed myself to really think about it too deeply.
A survival instinct kicked in because I might well have collapsed in a heap.” Within a year, Madeline was born. “We took no chances, slept with one eye open and carried out constant checks,” Alex says. While Madeline was still a baby, Alex channeled his grief into illustrating a children’s book, Harry the Camel – a cartoon camel that inspired Alex’s conservation foundation, Harry’s Endangered Friends (HEF).
Now 70, but far from retirement, Alex, as Director of Laboratories and Research at the Hili Embryo Transfer and Cloning Centre, has seen his team expand to 70 vets, technicians and scientists. He’s keen to dive deeper into the potential of cloning and genetic modification. “Compared to other animals, cloning camels is relatively easy,” he says. Despite adverse impacts, such as defects in vital organs and immune system problems being common in other cloned species, there are few such abnormalities in camels. The biotech centre runs a successful commercial cloning facility for dogs, horses and cattle as well as camels, and plans to clone endangered Arabian wildlife. Saving species from extinction is a noble undertaking. But bringing extinct species back to life raises ethical concerns. “Cloning offers tremendous research potential into disease, nutrition, exercise, you name it. But there’s no doubt that when you’re bringing something back from the dead, there’s a real worry of developing a God complex,” Alex admits.
The Desert Vet, Alex’s inspiring autobiography, chronicles an amazing life that’s come from saying ‘yes’ whenever opportunity knocked. “I have many reasons to thank Heath Harris for finding me in that outback pub but this is perhaps the greatest: it has allowed me to cross the boundaries of race and religion, and create a life full of rich possibility. And not just for me, but for my family as well.” Having weathered two divorces, Alex is now happily married to third wife, Jana. Youngest daughter, Madeline, is a champion bodybuilder in the US and Erica is a vet in the UK. Curiously, there are more than 20 vets in the Tinson line. Eldest daughter, Katya, married into a prominent Emirati family and has four children. Camels may have led Alex to fame and fortune in the shifting sands of Arabia, but the birth of his first Emirati grandson transformed the adventure. “That day all barriers disappeared and I became linked through blood to my adopted home,” he says.
