Just days after Georgia won its second consecutive College Football Playoff national championship, PETA is calling for the school’s beloved mascot, an English bulldog named Uga, to be retired and a human mascot to take its place.
“As the back-to-back national champion, can’t UGA find it in its heart to honestly examine the impact of its promotion of deformed dogs and call time on its outdated, live-animal mascot program?” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said in a press release. “PETA is calling on Jere Morehead to be a peach and replace poor Uga with a human mascot who can support the team in a winning way.”
The nonprofit sent the letter to school president Jere W. Morehead on Thursday morning, citing how Georgia’s use of the mascot has prompted a rise in demand for breathing-impaired breeds. These includes dogs such as an English bulldog, boxers and pugs, to name a few, because their breeding is banned in some countries. The Netherlands, Austria and Norway all restrict the breeding, according to the Miami Herald.
Uga X—also known as Que—did not make the trip to Los Angeles for the title game on Monday night because the trip was too long for the nine-year-old dog, the Seiler family told reporter Adam Murphy.
Last fall, PETA pushed for MLB to change the “bullpen” to “arm barn.”
