Killing endangered black rhino on CNN broadcast an outright tragedy

At the International Fund for Animal Welfare, we were saddened to learn that a critically endangered black rhino was killed by a US trophy hunter in Namibia, purportedly to raise money for rhino conservation.

As I argued on CNN last evening, the premise that endangered species can be protected by allowing individual members of that species to be sold off for the kill is just not sound science or an ethical practice in today’s world.

Last March, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced its decision to allow the importation of sport-hunted black rhino trophies from Namibia, citing “clear conservation benefits.” The permits in question were given to two wealthy American sport hunters who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the opportunity to kill these animals.

Although the Namibian government asserts that money from the permits will be used for conservation purposes, no detailed plans regarding the allocation of those funds have been released.

What we do know is that only 5,000 black rhinos exist in the world, and now we have one fewer.

CNN documented the hunting and killing of the rhino and broadcast it earlier this week.

This content originally appeared in a blog on www.ifaw.org.