Camels with Botox banned from Saudi camel beauty pageant

Camels with Botox banned from Saudi camel beauty pageant
Camels with Botox banned from Saudi camel beauty pageant
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Written by Harry Johnson

Authorities found that dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of their camels, used muscle-boosting hormones, injected their heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands, and used face-relaxing fillers.

The Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh is hosting an annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, which features its very own camel beauty pageant.

The event is organized under the aegis of the Riyadh-based King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (KAFRA) and features over 15,000 camels from the Kingdom and the Gulf states.

This year, however, festival’s Saudi officials have disqualified bout 40 camels from the festival’s lucrative annual camel beauty contest because the animals received Botox injections, facelifts, and other cosmetic touch-ups to become more attractive.

Describing it as the biggest-ever crackdown on such “tampering and deception,” the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the animals were barred from the ‘Miss Camel’ pageant held during the popular festival. The event invites breeders to compete for a $66 million prize.

Noting that “specialized and advanced” technology was used to detect the artificially enhanced camels, the SPA warned that event organizers will “impose strict penalties on manipulators,” with the intention of halting “all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels.”

At this year’s event, held in the desert near the capital city Riyadh, authorities found that dozens of breeders had stretched out the lips and noses of their camels, used muscle-boosting hormones, injected their heads and lips with Botox to make them bigger, inflated body parts with rubber bands, and used face-relaxing fillers.

Such artificial alterations are strictly prohibited at the contest, where judges pick the winner according to the shape of its head, neck, hump, dress, and posture. In recent years, organizers have reportedly used ultrasound scans and x-ray machines to confirm whether the animals have received cosmetic enhancements.

According to reports, camels found to have been artificially enhanced are banned from the competition for two years and can even be added to a blacklist circulated by authorities. Their owners can also be fined up to 100,000 Saudi riyals ($26,650).

But some breeders in the multimillion-dollar industry have apparently defended these alterations on aesthetic grounds and pushed back against the bans.

The beauty pageant is the main attraction at the month-long festival, which also includes camel races and markets. The gala ties into the camel’s traditional role in the oil-rich kingdom’s nomadic Bedouin roots. Similar, albeit less lucrative, beauty contests are held across the region.

About the author

Avatar of Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson

Harry Johnson has been the assignment editor for eTurboNews for mroe than 20 years. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, and is originally from Europe. He enjoys writing and covering the news.

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