Over 40 camels barred from Saudi ‘beauty contest’ over Botox

Marzouk Al-Natto, spokesman for the contest’s legal committee, said that breeders found to be tampering have to pay fines which vary according to the offense. While the fine for injecting fillers, Botox or hormones can be as much as 100,000 riyals per camel, for braiding, cutting the tail or dying the camel they can be slapped with a fine of 30,000 riyals, SPA reported.

In a bid to stand out from the rest, some breeders stretched out the lips and noses of the animals “using collagen lip fillers, artificially beefed up their muscles with hormones and inflated body parts using rubber bands”, authorities said.

The festival which happens annually on December saw the biggest crackdown ever punishing those who tried to “enhance” beauty of the camels. This year, organisers have dealt with 147 cases of tampering, the largest number since the festival began, CNN added.

The best-looking camel wins a cash prize. The festival’s overall prize pool is estimated at 250 million riyals, Gulf News reported. Following the festival, the most beautiful camels are auctioned off at a pavilion where the top camels can fetch millions.

BBC reported that judges used “advanced” technology to uncover tampering with camels where camels’ external appearance and movements were examined by specialists. “Their heads, necks and torsos were then scanned with X-ray and 3D ultrasound machines, and samples were taken for genetic analysis and other tests,” the report said.

However, this is not the first time that camels have been barred from the camel beauty contest. In 2018, 12 camels were disqualified after it was revealed they were injected with Botox. Earlier in August, a viral video of a camel with ruptured lips due to Botox sparked outrage in the country, where camels are an important part of the culture.