Seriously? WTF?

The Dallas Safari Club said Friday it aims to raise up to a million dollars for endangered black rhinoceroses by auctioning off a permit to kill one in Namibia.

  alJazeera

You read that right.

Tim Van Norman, chief of the branch of permits at the FWS, said the U.S. government has not yet issued any permit to the Dallas Safari Club to return a rhino's carcass to the United States, the possibility of which would be subject to a number of conditions.

The auction's winner would have to pass background checks, he said, and hire a guide to lead a hunt accompanied by Namibian wildlife officials. The animal chosen for the hunt would also have to be approved as beneficial to the species' conservation for the government to allow the trophy inside U.S. borders.

Van Norman added that Namibia has determined certain black rhino males, older ones that have already produced offspring and are in reproductive decline, are the best targets for hunting.

"Black rhinos are very territorial so you will have an older male that is keeping younger males from reproducing," he said. "By removing these older males from the population, you get an increase in the production of calves. Younger males are able to impregnate the females that are in that area so you get more offspring than from some of these older males."

Yes, because nature has not provided sufficient instincts and practices amongst herds of black rhinos over the eons to properly regulate their populations. You effing asshat.

And the fact that the black rhino is an endangered species has nothing to do with men and the trade in rhino horns.  It's that the old male rhinos are in the way of the balance of nature.  (I know some old males that are in the way of the balance of nature, but they belong to a different species.)

Also, if Namibian officials are like officials anywhere else in the world, I have no doubt that for the right amount of money, the approval of the targeted animal as beneficial to the conservation of the species will not be a problem. 

"Shooting a black rhino in the wild is about as difficult as shooting a parked car," [said Wayne Pacelle, president of the US Humane Society.] "If these are multimillionaires and they want to help rhinos, they can give their money to help rhinos. They don't need to accompany their cash transfer with a high caliber bullet," he said.

Indeed.  But that's not what they are.  They're men with identity issues and too much money.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.