American To Kill Endangered Black Rhino

Last year, hunter and reality television host Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 in an auction at the Dallas Safari Club for a permit to kill one of only 5,500 black rhinos still living in the wild. He plans to travel to Namibia next month to hunt the endangered species, and is lobbying the Department of Fish and Wildlife to allow him to return to the U.S. with the head.

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia

In order to come home with the rhino’s head, Knowlton must meet strict guidelines laid out by the Fish and Wildlife Service. Brian Clark Howard of National Geographic explains:

“Trade in any rhino parts is restricted by international law, so hunters must get a special permit from the Fish and Wildlife Service to import them as trophies. That requires showing that the animal was killed in the name of conservation?and that bringing it home also helps that cause.”

Yes, you read that right. It is somehow possible to not only claim that killing a critically endangered species was done so in the name of conservation, but it is also possible to claim that removing that animal’s head and shipping it to the United States also helps the cause.

Rhino03(js)
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia

 

The black rhino population was said to be around 1,800 last year in Namibia, and 5,500 in total across the continent. That number is down a staggering 96% over the last 100 years, caused mostly by habitat loss, poaching, and the market for rhinoceros horns in Asia. To do the math for you, that means that in 1914, there were roughly 137,500 rhinos living in the wild. In 100 years, humans killed 132,000 black rhinos. One hundred thirty-two thousand.

When taking those numbers into consideration, it’s obvious that every single black rhinoceros remaining in the wild is important. There has been an international outcry in response to the auction, with North American regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare Jeff Flocken writing for National Geographic:

“The auction to kill one of the last wild black rhinos is just another example of the warped logic that’s exploiting our wildlife ?for their own good.? ?It is pushing a species like the iconic black rhino closer to extinction by telling the world that rhinos are worth more to us rare and dead than healthy and flourishing in the wild where they belong.”

Black rhinos are on the brink of extinction, and the concept of “killing them to save them” is absurd. If there was ever a lesson to be taken from The Lorax, it’s this: let’s not keep killing them and killing them for our own enjoyment, because before we know it, they’ll be gone.