Welcome

The recently estab­lished Ugly Ani­mal Preser­va­tion Soci­ety (UAPS) is ded­i­cated to rais­ing aware­ness of the exis­tence and get­ting more atten­tion for “Mother Nature’s more aes­thet­i­cally chal­lenged chil­dren” as pres­i­dent Simon Watt calls them. So draw­ing atten­tion to these ugly ani­mals that need sav­ing too, instead of the panda which gets too much attention.

Watt’s soci­ety is lack­ing a mas­cot , and it should be one that rivals the cute and cud­dly emblems of many char­i­ties and organ­i­sa­tions, accord­ing UAPS’ website.

There­fore Watt, who is also an evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist, and his team organ­ise events — com­edy nights — with come­di­ans who will each cham­pion a dif­fer­ent ugly endan­gered species. And at the end of the evening the audi­ence vote for what will become the society’s sym­bol. In short, a com­edy night with a con­ser­va­tion twist.

One of the ani­mals com­pet­ing to be the society’s mas­cot is the naked mole rat, which is to cer­tain stan­dards ‘very ugly’. But its resis­tance to can­cer has fur­thered research that can one day help humans. In addi­tion it is one of the clean­est crit­ters, since it builds latrine cham­bers to keep its waste iso­lated from eat­ing and sleep­ing areas.

See what Simon Watt, society’s pres­i­dent, has to say about UAPS:

(Source: UAPS web­site; Dis­cov­ery news, 18.06.2013)