Here's What the Guy Who Paid $50,000 to Kill Cecil the Lion Can Learn from the Guy Who Paid $350,000 to Kill a Black Rhino - Done right, paid hunts for endangered animals can be a huge boon for conservation

[Machiavelli]

Katherine Mangu-Ward
Reason
July 31, 2015

... the problem isn't that Palmer paid a lot of money to hunt a lion, it's that he didn't pay enough money, he paid it to the wrong people, and he killed the wrong lion ...

American Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 for a permit to hunt a black rhino in Namibia under the auspices of the Dallas Safari Club back in January 2014. Black rhinos are critically endangered, and Knowlton received death threats after the permit auction, but the details of his hunt are likely to win over all but the most ardent hunting opponents.

For starters, the money will go to fight poaching. (That's right: this pay-to-play hunt will help fund efforts to prevent exactly the kind of crappy practices used by Palmer's team) The permit from the Namibian government authorized only the killing of one of 18 elderly male black rhinos, which are actually considered a net negative for overall species survival, since they are past their breeding years but remain territorial and are therefore a threat to the younger males. Knowlton and his well-vetted team whittled that list to just four animals and were obsessively carefully about finding the right rhino to kill ...

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