Black
Rhino Hunting Permit Auctioned for $350,000
DALLAS January 11, 2014 (AP)
By NOMAAN MERCHANT and MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press
A permit to hunt an endangered African black
rhino sold for $350,000 at a Dallas auction held to raise money for
conservation efforts but criticized by wildlife advocates.
Steve Wagner, a spokesman for the Dallas Safari Club, which
sponsored the closed-door event Saturday night, confirmed the sale
of the permit for a hunt in the African nation of Namibia. He declined to name the buyer.
The Safari Club's executive director, Ben Carter, has defended the auction, saying all money raised
will go toward protecting the species. He also said the rhino that the
winner will be allowed to hunt is old, male and nonbreeding — and
that the animal was likely to be targeted for removal anyway because it was
becoming aggressive and threatening other wildlife.
But the auction drew howls from critics,
including wildlife and animal rights groups, and the FBI said it was
investigating death threats against members of the club.
Officials from the Humane Society and the International Fund for
Animal Welfare have said that while culling can be appropriate in abundant
animal populations, all black rhinos should be
protected, given their endangered status.
An estimated 4,000 black rhinos remain in the
wild, down from 70,000 in the 1960s. Nearly
1,800 are in Namibia, according to the Safari Club.
Critics have also said any hunting of a
rhino sends a bad message to the public.
"This auction is telling the world that an American will pay anything to kill their species,"
Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director of the Massachusetts-based
IFAW, said this past week. "This is, in fact, making a spectacle
of killing an endangered species."
The auction took place in downtown Dallas
under tight security. Organizers hoped to at
least break the previous high bid for one of the permits in Namibia, which was
$223,000, and had said the amount could be as high as
$1 million. The nation offers five permits each year, and the one auctioned
Saturday was the first to be made available for
purchase outside of Namibia.
The winning bidder could have come from
anywhere in the world, and at least some bidders were expected to enter by
phone.
About 40 protesters gathered early Saturday evening outside the
convention center where the auction and a pre-auction
dinner were to take place. They held signs and chanted. Most dispersed
by just after 6 p.m. CST.
Jim and Lauren Ries traveled with their children from Atlanta to
protest the auction of the rare black rhino hunting permit in Dallas. Jim Ries
said it was his son Carter, 12, and daughter
Olivia, 11, who pushed for them to go and participate.
"We heard what the Dallas Safari Club was doing and we thought it was just wrong that they were auctioning off
to kill a black rhino and we really got upset that they were thinking this,"
Carter Ries said.
Jim Ries said his children are passionate
about animal conservation and were working to help
adopt cheetahs in Africa. The family started a
nonprofit called One More Generation, dedicated to
saving endangered species.
"There's less than 5,000 black rhinos left on the
planet," the father said, "and if our kids ever
want to see a rhino left in the wild, we can't be pulling the trigger on every
one we say is too old to breed."
Poachers long have targeted all species
of rhino, primarily for its horn, which is valuable on the international black market. Made
of the protein keratin, the chief component in fingernails and hooves, the horn
has been used in carvings and for medicinal purposes, mostly in Asia. The near-extinction of the species also
has been attributed to habitat loss.
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