Redheads

Redhead Festival

The town of Breda in the Netherlands held the 6th Annual Redhead Festival. Approximately 5,000 fellow redheads showed up and they also set some sort of world record when over 1,200 redheads gathered for a photo (who keeps these records?).

The redhead fest was launched somewhat by accident in 2005, when a local Dutch painter was recruiting 15 ginger-haired models for a painting. When he received 10 times the number of responses than what he needed, he decided to amass them all for a photo shoot. And the number of redheads present each year has grown exponentially, as has the number of boring-haired spectators. These non-ginger gawkers numbered more than 7,000 in 2009, the BBC noted, although that total hasn’t been updated since.

According to the article, us redheads are said to make up 2% of the world’s population, although I’ve heard differing reports that the number is closer to 5%. I think I need to put this event on the calendar for next year.

Via Time by way of NextDraft

Redhead Population Falling

Saw this article today that talks about how the population of natural redheads is dwindling and may become extinct by the year 2100, based on research conducted by the Oxford Hair Foundation (whoever they are). According to Oxford, only 4% of the World’s population has red hair (known fact) and since the gene is recessive, it is diluted if carriers produce children with people who have the brown hair dominant gene.

As a redheaded male, I think the position taken by this research group is a bit extreme but not outside the realm of possibility. For my part, I have contributed to the redhead population by bringing my daughter Rebecca and her beautiful red hair into the world.