A wild male black rhino is pictured. (credit: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images)
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The Dallas Safari Club is holding an auction with what seems to be a strange premise.
Participants can bid on the chance to hunt an endangered African black rhino. The proceeds from the auction will then go toward protecting the very same endangered African black rhinos.
Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive officer of The Humane Society of the United States, says that doesn’t make sense. “The whole world is really fighting to protect the rhinos from the poachers and now you have some of these Dallas elite really wanting to kill a rhino just for a trophy.”
Pacelle says the auction is at odds with every notion of conservation and animal welfare. “From a sporting perspective shooting a black rhino is like shooting a tank. It’s not very difficult. You’re not doing it to control the population of course, because they’re so rare and you’re not doing it for food.”
Whoever wins the permit gets the right to go to Namibia to shoot and kill one of approximately 5,055 of the animals left in the world.
It’s estimated that as much as $1 million could be raised inthe auction… money Pacelle says could be used to fight poaching.
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