PETA sends letter to University of Georgia administration asking it to retire Uga mascot

When Georgia took on TCU in the national championship Monday, a key fan wasn’t in attendance. Beloved mascot Uga X didn’t make the trip to SoFi Stadium for the game, which saw the Bulldogs fly past the Horned Frogs 65-7.

However, PETA is once again calling on the university to retire him.

The organization released a statement Thursday asking the university to move on from Uga as it campaigns for sports teams to stop using live mascots as a whole. In a statement, PETA also said teams need to start using “human mascots” instead, more than three years after it last asked the university to retire Uga. Georgia has two “human mascots” in Hairy Dawg and Spike.

“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can’t UGA find it in its heart to honestly examine the impact of its promotion of deformed dogs and call time on its outdated, live-animal mascot program?”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 statement. “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.”

Georgia has had a live mascot since 1956 when then-head coach Wally Reed asked the Seiler family permission to use their dogs, On3 and DawgsHQ’s Palmer Thombs wrote. Uga X replaced Uga IX in 2015.

Fans and experts alike bemoaned the fact that UGA wasn’t able to be on the sideline for the national championship, but Kirby Smart said he believes the decision was the right one.

“It’s a scary thought. I realized that — I didn’t know that until I read it last night or yesterday. It will be different. I can’t lie. I don’t see Uga a lot. I’m usually tied up in some other things,” Smart said. “I know that would be a big deal to a lot of fans. But it’s a good decision by the Seiler family.”