As anyone on social media has undoubtedly heard, from numerous news organizations, the Dallas Safari Club yesterday auctioned off a single permit to hunt and kill an endangered Black Rhino. Now this is how you read it through social media... Like so much news these days the exposure is all absorbed directly from the headline or at most the first paragraph.
Now with this much information you can understand why 75,000 people signed a change.org campaign to try to block the auction. There have been death threats sent to members of the club and a host of negative publicity around the whole auction which occurred Saturday ending with a $350k anonymous winning bid. There has been A LOT of barking about the fact (important to remember these) that the Safari Club is actually an animal conservation group and how hypocritical this is to auction a permit for killing an animal that the conservation is supposed to be protecting. How dare they kill this animal... I mean it's not an unwanted baby... It's an endangered species so those damn hypocritical conservationists.
So now let's do something that doesn't happen enough; inject some facts into the story.
So the critically endangered Black Rhino has an estimated global wild population of about 5,000. The country in question where this permit comes from is Namibia where an estimated 1,700 of these Rhinos exist in the wild under government protection. Actually Namibia has the largest population of wild Black Rhinos and Cheetahs in the world which explains why over 70‰ of land in Namibia is under government conservation. Now Namibia, like so many countries in Africa, has a fairly weak economy which relies heavily on tourism and conservation efforts. That said they auction 5 of these permits every year with proceeds going strictly to conservation efforts. I'm sure there are those who could question whether the funds actually go to conservation efforts but to that I would have to mention that Rhino population decline took a U turn after Namibia started the conservation efforts in the late 1980s when poaching accounted for nearly 1,000+ Rhino deaths annually and by 1993 there were only 2475 recorded globally. So something about their conservation efforts work or else the Rhino would long ago have become extinct.
Now the government doesn't just let these 5 permits get used on any Rhino (which is what the reporting would like you to believe...) These animals are selected well in advance and are older male (bull) Rhinos that are past their reproductive capability and pose a threat to other younger males and females still capable of reproducing. Don't believe me? SavetheRhino.org is one of the widely used donation sites on the web for Rhino conservation and here is what they have to say on their website:
"Trophy hunting is only allowed under strict permit conditions, and a maximum of five black rhino per year may be hunted in each of South Africa and Namibia. The rhinos are selected on careful biological principles: rhinos used for trophy hunting are old, generally post-reproductive bulls, who may have a detrimental effect on the overall rhino population, by being aggressive or territorial. By removing the problematic individual, this may enable a higher growth rate for the population as a whole.
White rhino hunting is less closely regulated, as the overall population is much bigger, and hunting primarily takes place on private land. It is therefore in the interests of the owner to select rhinos for hunts, whose removal does not adversely affect the property’s overall rhino population. Trophy hunting has played a key role in the recovery of the white rhino population in South Africa, and helped the species recover from the brink of extinction."
In the interest of keeping this post short enough for most people to suffer through I will leave the above portion of the post open which is what I hope it does for even just a few readers minds. Not everyone with a gun is evil and not everyone who hunts (trophy or otherwise) hates animals. One last important one.... Not everyone who calls something hypocritical should open their mouth. Almost every major new organization has put a negative spin on this story. How quickly we all forget that in this country its not socially acceptable to kill an animal but its perfectly acceptable to terminate a baby. Or a brain dead 13 year old (which btw I know several brain dead individuals that I would get thrown in jail for "pulling the plug" on...) Maybe Namibia just doesn't like this Rhino anymore... Maybe his horn looks funny or they really had wanted a girl Rhino. I wonder if the actual reason for this auction, organization and effort would be acceptable if that was the reason behind the hunt...
To close I want to make sure I set one thing VERY straight. Anyone who knows me knows that I am an animal lover. I have never been a hunter, never killed an animal with anything other than a car (and not a Rhino...) and grew up in a house that embraced animals regardless of age, appearance or demeanor. I by no means agree with senseless killing of animals. I even take insects outside rather than killing them (not because I find an issue killing them but the mess is just one more thing to deal with...) That woman that ate a pure bred dog to make a gross statement, in my opinion was an idiot. That was a senseless animal death. But then again sense seems to be less important these days....
