The mayor of a remote Australian mining town overpopulated with men has pleaded for "ugly ducklings" to move there as a way to help with the gender imbalance. And locals aren’t taking his remarks lightly.

Mayor John Molony of Mount Isa, in northwestern Queensland, called his town a place "with five blokes to every girl" and suggested that "beauty-disadvantaged women" should go there.

While many locals are infuriated by Molony’s remarks, the mayor says he did not mean to cause offense but wanted to reverse the shortage of eligible women in his remote town of about 25,000 people, according to the AFP and Reuters.

The mayor is also refusing to apologize, saying that his town is "an opportunity for some lonely women."

Some locals worry that the mayor’s words make the entire town look like animals.

"It paints the women here as second-rate and suggests the men will settle for anything," Mt. Isa domestic violence worker Shirley Slann told the Courier Mail.