Black Rhino Hunting Auction

[Newzooboy]

There are no problems with the "endangered" whitetail deer here in Alabama. See the example with Botswana and Elephants, the White Rhino in South Africa etc. You can have opinions but you can't make your own facts. You create a legal, controlled, economically viable open market it for the most part not only gets rid of black markets but the locals have some employment, an incentive to protect the animals etc.

Yes, I accept the point you are making but I'm not sure I had made my own facts....

As stated elsewhere.....I think the situation is a bit different for Black Rhino.....nevertheless, I could accept perhaps some limited hunting if it preserved the whole environment and only involved animals that required culling anyway as part of management plans (e.g. elephants in Kruger) but I don't think Black Rhinos fit into this category.

If people really want a Black Rhino head to put on the wall then why not donate some money to a zoo that holds them in return for a carcass of one that dies naturally....as has been stated there soen't seem to be much 'sport' in it.

Also, while discussing books that may be helpful in providing some background to the various issues discussed here...another of Jared Diamond;s books 'Collapse' is also relevant in places.

 

[TheOnlineZoo]

A few folks on this thread support the hunting model, and this model has clearly worked for some species. As others have said, that success does not mean that it will necessarily work for black rhino. But I think the point that we've mostly overlooked is that the hunting model is not our only option. It may be the most financially attractive option. It may be the easiest option to sell politically. But is it the best option for the rhinos?

I'm not smart enough to answer that question, so I will just say: I hope not. It's a sad world when we have to let some animals be killed for fun in order to have enough a small chance of saving others.

 

[Buldeo]

For those of you interested in the subject, do check out this very fine analysis on the fallacies of a "market-based" solution to rhino preservation.

From the fine folks @ Annamiticus.

Myth #1. “A legal trade in rhino horn is the ‘rhino poaching’ solution.”

In 1996, a total of six rhinos were killed illegally in South Africa, down from ten the prior year. At the Tenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES in 1997, South Africa sought to expand its Southern white rhino trade from “international trade in live animals to appropriate and acceptable destinations and hunting trophies” to include rhinoceros “parts and derivatives”.

However — even at a time when illegal killing numbers were declining (the total was four in 1997, then one in 1998 and 1999) respectively — the Parties determined that South Africa lacked “adequate control mechanisms” for a legal trade.

Today, evidence suggests that South Africa’s “control mechanisms” have declined even further. Since 2003, unscrupulous members of South Africa’s private rhino community have been implicated in rhino horn trafficking. Even more troubling, is that very few of these game farmers, professional hunters and safari operators have been convicted. Pseudo-hunts continued unabated with the apparent knowledge of provincial authorities, while hundreds of rhino horns and trophies were exported to Vietnam and Laos with the approval of South Africa’s CITES authorities. Following negative international publicity about the Vietnamese pseudo-hunts and Julian Rademeyer’s ground-breaking book Killing for Profit, South African trafficking networks apparently attempted to use connections in the Czech Republic.

Mary Rice, Executive Director of Environmental Investigation Agency’s London office, explains that “commercial interests” are behind South Africa’s pro-trade rhino policies.

You can read the full analysis over here. While I don't agree with all of their conclusions, it is certainly worth a read.