Twelve animals were disqualified at Saudi Arabia’s annual camel beauty contest after judges found that their owners had injected them with botox to give them larger snouts and “attractive pouts”, The National reported. Last year, authorities moved the festival from a remote location in the desert to a site an hour and a half from Riyadh, and this year attendance has increased by a third, according to Reuters. "

Real money is at stake: About $57 million is awarded to winners of the contests and camel races, The National reports, with more than $31.8 million in prizes for just the pageants. Days before the festival, a veterinarian was also "caught red-handed" both giving camels Botox and performing surgery to reduce the size of their ears, The National reported. "They use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw," Ali Al Mazrouei, a regular at such festivals and the son of a prominent Emirati breeder, told the newspaper. "It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes it's like, 'Oh look at how big is that head is. It has big lips, a big nose.’” Saudi media reported that a veterinarian was caught performing cosmetic surgery on camels — giving them Botox and making their ears smaller, according to the National. "It makes the head more inflated.”

The month-long King Abdulaziz camel festival at capital Riyadh is the biggest in the Gulf, involving some 30,000 camels and 600,000 visitors.
A dozen camels are disqualified from a beauty pageant at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, near Riyadh, after reports in the media about injections with botox. A veterinarian is caught performing plastic surgery to make the camels more attractive. Rules prohibit to change the natural form of participating camels.