Winner of Black Rhino Hunt Auction Threatened

I have no problem with this, if done correctly.


He is paying $350,000 to help preserve the species... what are these assholes doing besides threatening him to help?




Every one of us that buys hunting license and hunting gear to go and kill certain animals is also paying into a fund to protect these animals. This is the same thing but on a larger scale

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Knowlton says the Namibian government has identified a handful of black rhinos that can be hunted. These are animals that are old, no longer capable of breeding and are considered a dangerous threat to other younger animals.

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Knowlton wants to preserve the black rhino's hide and then donate the rhino meat to needy communities in Namibia.

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The comments, for the most part, are fairly good. Especially for a CNN article

Black Rhinos are so awesome.

Guys like Knowelton and Shockey are the ones that are saving these animals.

Think about it. If hunting one blakc rhino can bring in $350,000 then that makes it a viable industry. It becomes the best interest of the government to increase the numbers of rhino in order to sell more hunts, which in turn brings more demand for population.

If nobody is hunting them, then what is their value to society? To take pictures. Ok, some liberal nut is gonna pay $250 to go ride around in a jeep and take pictures. I don't think the effort to save the species is higher for the $250 payoff than the $350,000 one, do you?

It's simple economics

i LIKE THIS ONE RIGHT BESIDE THE STORY

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I just don't necessarily take the lofty intentions of African governments at face value.

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That's just my point.

Without hunting the world is relying on lofty intentions to save the species. Well lofty intentions do not generate income, so corruption(which does generate income) occurs.

Once you introduce hunting the intentions become economic. It is smart economically to increase population to have the ability to sell more hunts. You move the $ transactions from corrupt hunts to a legal arena that can be priced, taxed, regulated.

Hunting removes the corruption.


Jim Shockey actually advocates hunting of South American jaguars to save the species for this very reason. The only reason the corruption exists is because there is no legal financial commodity assigned to these animals. People kill jaguars still. They pay less than they'd pay if it were legal, and none of the $ spent goes back into saving the species.

Long term I think that is realistic.

Unfortunately, economic motivations in Africa haven't necessarily led to consistent regulation. The same is true for a number of other African natural resource trades. We all know how much external pressure African states get to regulate industries, so sometimes even the regulatory schemes that are implemented are deeply problematic (as they're just implemented to avoid the international pressure).

The theory isn't flawed, but it does rely on some measures of accountability and central oversight, which simply aren't present in many of these countries (or aren't sufficient). We're relying on fractured government factions to send the money to the right places, verify animals appropriate for harvesting, verify ivory, hides, etc. that are exported come from those harvested animals, whatever.

I think this is another conservation issue for hunters to really get out in front on. We all know about the conservation resources the hunting community provides, but we don't take enough credit it for it very often. Showing the value of these hunts, if combined with a simultaneous demand for transparency from those states, is the way to go IMO. No sense in letting hunters be the $$$ side while international/environmental organizations do the accountability if we can do all of it ourselves (and preempt our detractors).

Agree. I'm no fan of regulation either, although I don't disagree with some regulation for the protection of things we collectively enjoy (although obviously that is subject to abuse).

The best option is combining some degree of expansive regulation (animal protections, for example) with government/private collaboration to develop protected areas. Providing safe havens for delicate animal populations or ecosystems, especially when done with public-private collaboration, is something I can definitely get behind, as it may require less regulation applying to privately owned land. That too will ruffle some feathers (we all have opinions on Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, etc.) but I think it is still a good concept to pursue.

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But the auction is for an old male on the decline and cant breed anymore. It will die soon and have nothing to show for it, but now they have 360k go help preserve the rest of them... so i see no problem

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I don't see a problem with them doing it. I see a problem with someone that would pay to go shoot an old, near death animal.