20 camels found cheating at beauty pageant, disqualified for getting Botox to enhance their curves

Camel beauty pageants are a thing in the Middle East. And while you come to terms with that, here is something else that might shock you. The camels at one particular beauty pageant are cheating to win the coveted title. At the Camel Beauty Show Festival in Al Musanaa, Oman, the dromedary is the highlight of the show. The dromedary camel has one hump and four teats instead of the two in the Lama species. The prize money is huge, and the winner could get cars and cash. A camel's voluptuous curves play a major role in deciding who wins. So their owners are turning to artificial methods to add that oomph factor. The camels are getting Botox and other treatments to stand out. However, their fraudulent activity was revealed, and twenty of the camels at this year’s Beauty Show Festival were disqualified from competition, Popular Mechanics reported.

Beauty treatments at camel pageants

Controversy in the world of camel beauty pageants is not a new thing. At the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival of Saudi Arabia, also known as Miss Camel, officials found that contestants’ lips were injected with Botox and fillers. In camels, voluptuousness is the mark of beauty, be it lips, humps, or rumps. Necks, gleaming coats and symmetrical humps are also the standard. Dark eyes and shiny, yellow teeth are also important. Using illegal beauty treatments to beautify the camels has been likened to doping for camels by some people. Those breeders who can afford the costs even give their camels to improve their muscles. The desert animals are also being given nose jobs. However, those who do not have the money are doing strange things to make the camels beautiful, like stretching their lower lips with their hands.

These treatments have side effects in the animals. They can cause infections, swelling and pain. There could be bigger problems, like hormonal issues, which can cause behavioural problems. Females can also become infertile from all the treatments. For this reason, animal welfare groups have also raised objections to subjecting the animals to such acts. Camel beauty pageant officials have also become strict and test blood samples and use X-rays to check for artificial changes.