Twelve contestants in Saudi Arabia’s much-celebrated camel beauty contest have been disqualified after their owners were suspected of having injected the animals’ faces with Botox.
The competition is a part of the country’s annual camel festival. Despite the modernity of Gulf cities such as Riyadh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, many ancient traditions have been kept alive and camels are bred for racing and for milk with the full support of the government. Prime beasts can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars each at auction.
In Saudi Arabia the camel festival is also promoted as part of attempts to encourage tourism. On this occasion, though, organisers said that some owners had taken competition too far.
Camels are judged on their overall appearance, including the length of their neck and the shape of their hump, but delicate ears and full lips are also highly prized.
Even before the contest began a vet was discovered to have been employed by one owner to surgically reduce his camel’s ears. During the contest Fawzan al-Madi, the chief judge, said that a further 12 camels had been removed and their owners banned for using Botox, the highly toxic substance that is used to fill out facial wrinkles in humans.
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There is more than prestige at stake: about 30,000 camels compete at races and pageants at the festival each year, with £40 million in prize money up for grabs — more than half of which is allocated to the camel beauty contest.
“They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” Ali al-Mazrouei, from a leading family of Emirati camel-breeders, told The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi. “It makes the head more inflated, so when the camel comes it’s like, ‘Oh look how big that head is. It has big lips, a big nose.’ ”
Mr Madi said that such behaviour was unfair to the animals and was an offence against the country itself. “The camel is a symbol of Saudi Arabia,” he added.