The Dallas Safari Club says the money will serve to promote conservation efforts

Jan 13, 2014 09:58 GMT  ·  By
Dallas Safari Club auctions permit to hunt black rhino in Namibia's Mangetti National Park
   Dallas Safari Club auctions permit to hunt black rhino in Namibia's Mangetti National Park

Despite opposition from several conservation groups, the Dallas Safari Club has moved forward with its plans to auction off the chance to kill a rare black rhino living in Namibia's Mangetti National Park.

Thus, a permit allowing a hunting enthusiast to track down and shoot one such animal was sold for an impressive $350,000 (€255,988) at an auction held in the city of Dallas in Texas, US, this past Saturday.

In a press release issued some days before the sale of this hunting permit, the Dallas Safari Club explains that the money raised by selling the opportunity to kill a black rhino will serve to promote conservation efforts meant to save this species from going extinct.

“DSC [Dallas Safari Club] expects the permit to bring at least $250,000 [€182,849], perhaps up to $1 million [€0.73 million] – with 100 percent of proceeds earmarked for Namibia’s rhino conservation efforts including anti-poaching patrols,” the group writes.

Mirror tells us that, in order to ensure that the hunt will not have a negative impact on the Mangetti National Park's black rhino population, wildlife officials in Namibia are to keep a close eye on the entire operation.

More precisely, they will accompany the hunting party and see to it that the rhino that is killed is not a young specimen, but an old male that is no longer able to breed and that is fairly aggressive and therefore represents a threat to other bulls, cows and even calves.

“These bulls no longer contribute to the growth of the population and are in a lot of ways detrimental to the growth of the population because black rhinos are very aggressive and territorial,” Ben Carter, the executive director of the Dallas Safari Club, stresses in a statement.

“In many cases, they will kill younger, non-breeding bulls and have been known to kill calves and cows,” he goes on to explain.

For the time being, neither the name nor at least the nationality of the person who won the auction for the hunting permit has been shared with the public. Given the amount of bad publicity this hunt has received over the past few months, this information will probably remain undisclosed.