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Controversial black rhino hunting permit sells for $350k
Campaigners say hunting permit encourages hunting of endangered species
12 January 2014, 12:00am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
1 min read
A controversial permit to kill endangered black rhinos in rhino-haven Namibia has been sold for $350,000.
The auction sale by Us hunting club, Dallas Safari Club, prompted uproar among campaigners who demonstrated outside the auction house.
Whereas the Club defended the sale as it would be used towards animal conservation in the African country, protesters vehemently opposed the sale as they said that black rhinos should be protected, rather than hunted down.
"The permit allows the buyer to kill a single, post-breeding black rhino, with Namibian wildlife officials on hand to make sure an appropriate animal is targeted," Club executive Ben Carter said while defending the record-sale.
Moreover, he said biologists in Namibia were hopeful that the permit would be sold for a record figure to help rhino conservation - a feat achieved by the astronomical sale.
"These bulls no longer contribute to the growth of the population and are in lots of ways detrimental to the growth of population due to their aggression towards other rhinos,"
"In many cases, they will kill younger, non-breeding bulls and have been known to kill calves and cows."
Nevertheless, campaigners said given their endangered status, all black rhinos should be protected.
Over 70,000 people signed an online petition calling for the auction to be scrapped as it was conveying a message that an American would pay anything to kill black rhinos.
"This is, in fact, making a spectacle of killing an endangered species," said Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
There are an estimated 4,000 black rhinos left on the planet - down from some 70,000 in the 1960s. Nearly half of those left are in Namibia.
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Birdlife Malta and Animal lovers in Malta together with some NGO's are going to start collecting signatures for a petition and try to organize a massive visit to Namibia to present a protest letter to the Namibian President. If they don't succeed to reach their goal, they are going tie themselves on the back of the rhinos to prevent hunters from shooting at the rhinos. Sorry, I forgot that at the moment they are concentrating on local issues. Their only interest is to abolish Spring hunting to the detriment of the local hunters even when there is no alternative to it. They don't care to what the European Court of Justice said, that Autumn doesn't present an alternative for Spring Hunting.
