Ugly Animal Preservation Society

[1][2] In part it is based on the belief that conservation of charismatic megafauna like pandas attract disproportionate amounts of funding that could be better spent elsewhere.

Previous performers have included Ellie Taylor, Helen Arney, Dan Schreiber, Sarah Bennetto, Suzi Ruffell, Steve Cross, Dean Burnett and Iszi Lawrence.

Current ugly animal mascots include: for London, the proboscis monkey; for Cambridge, forms of endangered sea slug; for Bristol and Cheltenham, the three toed sloth; for Winchester, the Titicaca water frog; for Brighton, the naked mole-rat and for Newcastle the dugong.

[7][8] In September 2012 the Ugly Animal Preservation Society teamed up with the National Science and Engineering Competition[9] to create some online educational resources including eleven election style videos allowing people world wide to vote for what should become the general mascot for the society.

The campaign gained international press coverage and was supported online by tweets from many celebrities including Stephen Fry, Liz Bonnin and Simon Pegg.