RUNDU – An associate hunting consultant will be in Namibia during the course of 2014 to hunt for the black rhino that has been auctioned for US$350 000 (N$3,7 million), by the Dallas Safari Club. The person who bought the hunting permit has been revealed as Corey Knowlton by the US non-profit organization, One More Generation, which made the announcement on its Facebook page after the auction on Saturday.
“We just learnt that the person who spent US$350 000 to win the auction to kill a critically endangered black rhino which was offered by the Dallas Safari Club is non other than Corey Knowlton,” announced the organization.
Knowlton, who works for The Hunting Consortium in USA, is said to be a highly experienced international hunter who has worked in the hunting tourism industry for more than a decade and is considered as one of the rising stars of the industry.
According to his company profile, Knowlton is said to be particularly experienced in North American big game hunting, having taken almost all of the North American 29 big game species.
“Corey [Knowlton] travels constantly throughout the year exploring new areas and helping to develop new hunting programs for the Hunting Consortium,” reads the profile. It is not yet known when Knowlton will arrive in the country to kill the already identified black rhino.
The auction was condemned by many international wildlife advocates and wildlife groups who are of the opinion that the killing of endangered species is in stark contrast to the measures put in place to preserve endangered species.
However, the Namibian Minister of Environment and Tourism, Uaruka Herunga, is on record saying that the hunting is part of the country’s internationally acclaimed conservation methods. Herunga had said that he is “pleased with the N$3.7 million the government will receive from a controversial permit that will allow an endangered black rhino to be killed later this year. I am very happy that we will get the N$3.7 million for one rhino. That is not a bad price at all. It was a very good result.”
Prior to the auction, organizers stated that the permit could fetch as much as US$1 million after failing to reach the set target. Pending Cabinet approval, more rhino hunting permits will be issued this year.
The decision to put down the black rhino was prompted by the fact that the black rhino is old, male and non-breeding and it threatens the lives of other wildlife. Saturday night’s auction was attended by a high-level ministerial delegation from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, led by the ministry’s deputy permanent secretary Simon Negumbo.
The money raised for the Namibian permit will go towards conservation efforts for the species.
Poachers long have targeted all species of rhino, primarily for its horn, which is valuable on the international black market, particularly in China and south-east Asia. Made of the protein keratin, the chief component in fingernails and hooves, the horn is wrongly believed to have powerful medicinal properties.
By Mathias Haufiku