The camel's whole brand is endurance, and the best of these lines borrow it: crossing deserts for someone is the grand-gesture register dressed up as a zoo joke. Travel-story conversations are the natural opening — anyone describing a souk has volunteered for camel material.
Zoo dates and safari parks give you the animal as a prop, which halves the delivery work. For neighbouring beasts, the animal collection has the full ark, and the horse lines serve the saddle-adjacent audience.