By Shanna Johnson
Loyola Phoenix
A permit to hunt a black rhinoceros in Namibia, Africa was sold on Jan. 11 in Dallas for $350,000. The permit will allow the buyer to travel to Namibia and hunt and kill a male rhino that is no longer capable of breeding.
Despite the restrictions on the hunt, black rhinos are endangered, and there are only 5,000 left in the wild, according to the BBC. This being said, the guidelines for the hunt are helping in no way to preserve the rhinos that are left. Although the male rhinoceros being hunted does not have breeding capabilities, it is still a living and breathing black rhino that contributes to the population as a whole.
There are many people who protested the auction, parading around with signs with statements such as “A Life Should Not Be Auctioned” and “Killing Is Not Conservation.”
The protests came largely because of the Dallas Safari Club’s excuses for the hunt. It has claimed that the killing will aid in conservation because it would remove one particular “old and aggressive rhino.” Additionally, it has also added that the proceeds from the auction will go toward funding future conservation projects.
However, only three permits like these are issued per year in Namibia, and this is the first one to be sold outside of the country,according to the BBC.
The whole auction, despite claims of helping conservation, is absolutely sickening. The Dallas Safari Club is making a spectacle of an endangered animal’s life by holding this auction and giving someone the opportunity to kill an animal simply because it is old and easily aggravated. It would make no sense to do this to a human being, so why would it be OK to take part in an action like this, especially when there are so many efforts to keep black rhinos alive?
A total of 80,000 people had signed online petitions to end the auction and the hunt, but the petitions didn’t put a stop to them. Now we have to ask ourselves: If 80,000 people cannot stop this cruelty, who can?
Shanna Johnson is a contributing columnist. You can contact her at sjohnson24@luc.edu
