CONTROVERSY: Auction for Rhino Hunt Goes on Despite Death Threats [Annotated & comprehensive coverage]
Editor’s Note: The capitalist anarchy and unevenness of the American media prevents us from drawing firm conclusions about the consistent quality (or superiority) of any mainstream media channel, but the following comments are worth noting in connection with this news item. Some of the points go beyond the mere question of media competency, spilling into questions of social and political policy, foreign policy, etc.
(1) While the clip by CNN included here (see videos below) is tendentiously pro-hunting, the ABC and CBS reports are more balanced and even seem to have their sympathies in the right place, with the victimized animals. The reports are however typically far too short and do not examine in a responsible way the counter-arguments advanced by animal defense quarters.
(2) What should be forbidden at the Federal level—i.e., the participation by US citizens in the killing of any endangered animal— is obviously permitted.
(3) Not a peep is ever heard from religious quarters, nor do you ever see religious people protesting this kind of obscenity.
(4) While the plague of political and social corruption and barbarism toward animals is widespread in America, enthroned in wildlife “management” policy, among other things, Texas continues to set records for obtuseness and brutality, not to mention the arrogance of big money.
(5) If the rhino to be killed is, as the authorities and hunters claim, an old, non-breeding “troublemaker”, and probably a threat to other rhinos, then why not spend the money relocating the rhino to a sanctuary?
(6) No report examines the broader “macro political and historical” aspects of this event, for example the fact that a rich power like the United States spends more money in one advanced bomber than the money necessary to keep just about every animal and ecological project alive in Africa for a full year or longer. Second, very few stories highlight and still fewer Americans understand how the constant wars and western-supported political and military meddling and exploitation of Africa have turned the continent into a basket case of rampant political corruption, instability, and animal abuse by corrupt bureaucrats. This translates into a continent-wide disaster for the animal and supporting ecosystems. The horrific environmental degradation of Nigeria due to oil industry penetration is a very good case in point. —Patrice Greanville
BELOW: Videos and reports.
ABC
CNN
CBS
JANUARY 13, 2014, 0:33 AM|
A hunting group in Texas that auctioned off a permit to kill a black rhino in Namibia, says it’s receiving death threats. The animal is considered a “critically endangered species.” Don Dahler reports.
Texas Hunting Club Auctioning off Permit to Hunt Endangered Rhino
Colleen Curry
The chance to hunt an endangered black rhino will be auctioned off this weekend in Texas, where the Dallas Safari Club has pursued its controversial auction despite public outrage and even death threats.
The Texas-based hunting group is holding its annual convention this week in Dallas, where animal rights activists have promised to protest the rhino hunt.
The group has even received death threats because of the auction prize, according to ABC News affiliate station WFAA-TV in Dallas.
The club today is expected to auction off a seven-day trip to the Eastern Cape of South Africa to hunt the black rhino. The trip, valued at $28,000, includes a permit to hunt the endangered animal, which has drawn criticism from some conservation and animal rights activists.
There are an estimated 5,055 black rhinos left in the world.
“This is the ultimate in sport hunting as it is extremely challenging because the Black Rhino has very acute senses and is notoriously aggressive,” the auction catalogue reads. “Hunters are more likely to become the hunted and not the Hunter!”
Ben Carter, executive director of the club, told ABC News that the auction, and specifically this auction item, will help save the endangered black rhino, even if it seems contradictory.
“There is a biological reason for this hunt, and it’s based on a fundamental premise of modern wildlife management: populations matter; individuals don’t,” Carter said in a statement released in October. “By removing counterproductive individuals from a herd, rhino populations can actually grow.”
The group said all of the proceeds from the sale of the permit, estimated to fetch between $250,000 and $1 million, will go toward the Conservation Trust Fund for Namibia’s Black Rhino.
But animals rights groups disagree.
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said it would make more sense for the wildlife enthusiasts to donate money solely for rhino conservation than to kill one of the animals.
“I think if they were multimillionaires and they were serious about helping rhinos, they could give money to help rhinos and not shoot one along the way,” Pacelle said. “The first rule of protecting a rare species is to limit the human [related] killing.”
The rhino’s size and temperament make it a fairly easy animal to hunt and kill, Pacelle added.
“Rhinos are enormous lumbering animals who confront predators with their horn and physical mass,” he said. “Shooting a rhino is about as difficult as shooting a tank. … In terms of the sportsmanship component, it’s totally lacking.”
The Dallas Safari Club has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
Rhino hunt controversy: Critics slam permit to kill endangered animal
Kill one to save the species? Texas club auctions chance to hunt endangered rhino
Conservationists in South Africa say the country’s species of rhino could become extinct within the next few years because of poaching. There are just over 20,00 white, and 5,000 black rhinos left in Africa.
Plans to auction a rare permit that will allow a hunter to take down an endangered black rhino are drawing criticism from some conservationists, but the organizer says the fundraiser could bring in more than $1 million that would go toward protecting the species
John J. Jackson III belongs to the Dallas Safari Club, which earlier this month announced it would auction the permit – one of only five offered annually by Namibia in southwestern Africa. The permit is also the first to be made available for purchase outside of that country.
“This is advanced, state-of-the-art wildlife conservation and management techniques,” Jackson, a Metairie, La.-based international wildlife attorney, said Wednesday. “It’s not something the layman understands, but they should.
“This is the most sophisticated management strategy devised,” he said. “The conservation hunt is a hero in the hunting community.”
Endangered rhino caught on camera
Some animal preservation groups are bashing the idea.
“More than ridiculous,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said Wednesday.
“At a time when the global community is rallying to protect the elephant and rhino from the onslaught of people with high-powered weapons, this action sends exactly the wrong signal. It’s absurd. You’re going to help an endangered animal by killing an endangered member of that population?”
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.
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.
The auction is scheduled for the Dallas Safari Club’s annual convention in January. According to Jackson, who said he’s been working on the auction project with federal wildlife officials, the hunt will involve one of five black rhinos selected by a committee and approved by the Namibian government. The five are to be older males, incapable of reproducing and likely “troublemakers … bad guys that are killing other rhinos,” he said.
“You end up eliminating that rhino and you actually increase the reproduction of the population.”
Jackson said 100 percent of the auction proceeds would go to a trust fund, be held there until the permit is approved and then forwarded to the government of Namibia for the limited purpose of rhino conservation.
“It’s going to generate a sum of money large enough to be enormously meaningful in Namibia’s fight to ensure the future of its black rhino populations,” Ben Carter, the club’s executive director, said in a statement.
Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director of the Massachusetts-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, disagreed, describing the club’s argument as “perverse, to say the least.”
“And drumming up a bidding frenzy to get to the opportunity to shoot one of the last of a species is just irresponsible,” Flocken said. “This is just an attempt to manipulate a horrific situation where rhino poaching is out of control, and fuel excitement around being able to kill an animal whose future existence is already hanging in the balance.”
Rick Barongi, director of the Houston Zoo and vice president of the International Rhino Foundation, said the hunt was not illegal but remained a complex idea that “sends a mixed message.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was providing “guidance” to the safari club on whether it would agree to a permit, required under federal law, to allow the winning bidder to bring the trophy rhino to the United States.
“An import permit will be issued if, and only if, we determine that the sport-hunted trophy is taken as part of a well-managed conservation program that enhances the long-term survival of the species,” the agency said. Earlier this year, the service granted such a permit for a sport-hunted black rhino taken in Namibia in 2009.
Pacelle said the Humane Society would work to oppose the permit. An administrator at the Namibian Embassy in Washington referred questions about the hunt and auction to the government’s tourism office in Windhoek, the nation’s capital. There was no response Wednesday to an email from The Associated Press.
“The two hot issues here are the fact it’s an endangered species, and the second thing is it’s a trophy,” Barongi, the zoo director, said. “It’s one individual that can save hundreds of individuals, and if that’s the case, and it’s the best option you have … then you go with your best option.
“Because the alternative is you can lose them all,” he said.
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Bonus
Now, put a smile on that face ——if you can——and meet a baby rhino born in captivity via artificial insemination