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What Planet Is Corey Knowlton On?


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Complete Cnut

 

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Corey Knowlton, left, poses after a hunting expedition.

 

FORT WORTH, Texas: A US hunter who paid $US350,000 ($442,000) to kill a black rhinoceros in Namibia says his actions will help protect the critically endangered species.

Corey Knowlton, 36, from Dallas, Texas, downed the rhino with a high-powered rifle on Monday after winning the right to shoot the animal at an auction in Dallas in early 2014.

 

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Corey Knowlton says his killing of the black rhinoceros has raised awareness of the critically endangered species.

 

He spent the past 18 months planning the hunt before travelling to the southern African country this month.

Since 2012, Namibia has sold five licences to kill individual rhinos. It says the money is used to fund conservation projects and anti-poaching protection.

 

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Conservationists maintain there must be a better way to save a species than to let one of the herd be hunted and killed.

Hunters say all the money raised was donated to the Namibian government so that more of the herd could be cared for and saved.

News of Knowlton's kill spread like wildfire on Wednesday, partially because a CNN camera crew went along to document the hunt.

"I felt like from day one it was something benefiting the black rhino," Knowlton told CNN after the hunt.

"Being on this hunt, with the amount of criticism it brought and the amount of praise it brought from both sides, I don't think it could have brought more awareness to the black rhino.

"I think people have a problem just with the fact that I like to hunt," Knowlton told CNN.

"I want to see the black rhino as abundant as it can be. I believe in the survival of the species."

Knowlton's kill came after he learnt that another eligible rhino died, most likely from natural causes.

The Dallas Safari Club, which has worked with Namibian officials for years on conservation, announced in late 2013 that it would auction one of the rare permits - the first to be sold in the United States.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says about 850,000 black rhinos were alive through much of the last century before hunting left only about 2400 in 1995, but the numbers have since edged up to about 5000. Many of those - nearly 1800 - are in Namibia.

The black rhino, as well as its white counterpart, is hunted by poachers for its horns, which are highly valued for medicinal and therapeutic purposes and can be sold on the international black market for $US50,000 to $US300,000 ($63,000 to $380,000).

In recent years, more than 1600 white and black rhinos have been slaughtered for their horns.

The chosen rhino was an older bull, one who no longer breeds. And he was known to hurt others in the group, killing babies, breeding males and females of any age.

The exact location of the hunt was not disclosed to avoid letting poachers know where more of the herd could be found.

"It's a very challenging hunt," said Ben Carter, executive director of the Dallas Safari Club, which sold the permit.

"A lot of people who don't know about hunting or how it works thought it was like going out and shooting a cow. It's not."

Carter said Knowlton was probably on his way back to Texas - with the victory of his spoils, which includes the rhino's horns.

However, conservationists have criticised Knowlton.

"Bringing dead black rhinos back to the US as trophies does nothing to help save wild rhinos - if anything, it will encourage other people to try to hunt these endangered animals for sport," PETA Foundation deputy general counsel Delcianna Winders said.

"PETA is calling on the authorities to throw these hunters' pay-to-play requests where they belong - in the garbage."

Humane Society officials have weighed in as well, particularly when the permit was formally issued earlier this year.

"When the global community is working so hard to stop people from killing rhinos for their horns, we are giving a stamp of approval to a special class of privileged elite to kill these majestic animals as a head-hunting exercise," said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society. "The inconsistency is startling, and upends our moral authority."

Knowlton and the Dallas Safari Club continue to receive criticism and death threats.

People are calling and writing, leaving messages such as "We should kill you," or "We should hunt you," Carter said. "They don't understand that if you sell permits, you can raise enough money to take care of them so they will be around."

Carter said the rhino hunt was successful and a "great statement for sustainable use hunting and conservation".

"I think we are fortunate we live in a state that still has a strong hunting culture," Carter said. "People in this state understand it. It's people who haven't been exposed to wildlife that don't get it. We are trying to do our best to educate them every day."

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The chosen rhino was an older bull, one who no longer breeds. And he was known to hurt others in the group, killing babies, breeding males and females of any age.

 

They are usually relocated from breeding grounds not hunted.

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The chosen rhino was an older bull, one who no longer breeds. And he was known to hurt others in the group, killing babies, breeding males and females of any age.

 

Sort of like thinning out the old guys when they are no longer "useful"?

 

I still say he's a pussy. If you want to show you are macho, go to war and put your own life on the line. Shooting fish in a barrel is not a sport.

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Well paying a huge amount of dough to kill an endangered species in what is basically an easy set up--is weird stunt IMHO -

 

This is way different than hunting in the frozen tundra to harvest reindeer for your family to eat.

 

I am a vegetarian so killing animals to eat is not appealing to me either but it is something that people have done for

thousands years..I hate the animals hanging in the markets and if you saw this huge shop house near me stuffed with those chicken sticks

they sell...well you may look at them differently... :drool:

 

I never did understand the Buddhists all eating meat here.

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