On this basis, if Carter’s prediction holds true, MET’s experiment could be a very profitable one, with over three times as much raised for black rhino conservation than the previous method. In 2013, Namibia issued three trophy hunting permits, and auctioned them in the usual way, in Windhoek. Indeed, the Club’s Executive Director, Ben Carter, thinks the trophy could go for as much as US $750,000. There’s no point opening a shop selling de Beers’ diamonds in a council estate in a rundown city suburb. Texas is one of the wealthiest states in the USA and it makes sense to set your stall out where the money is. Funds from this auction will go to the Game Products Trust Fund in Namibia and will be ring-fenced specifically for rhino conservation efforts. Rather than hold the auction in Namibia, and hope that there are enough people with serious funds in the room to drive the bid up, they’ve gone straight to the potential customers – in this case, the members of Dallas Safari Club. Instead, MET has looked at where the wealthiest hunters are – and these tend to be American or German – and has focused on getting the best possible price for a black rhino trophy hunt. In South Africa, state departments like Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife do the same thing: hold an auction, within KwaZulu-Natal in this case, and hope the customers will come to them. Most of the bidders will be hunting safari operators, who buy permits to shoot particular numbers of specific species, and then offer these to their mailing list of clients, making a nice margin for themselves along the way. Normally, MET holds auctions in Windhoek, Namibia, which are attended by a mix of individuals and companies. The key difference is that Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), which owns all black rhino in Namibia, has decided to auction this particular trophy hunt in a different way. In other words, black rhino trophy hunting has been on offer for nine years already. Namibia and South Africa have each had the right (under CITES – the Convention on International Trade on Endangered Species) to offer up to five trophy hunts of black rhinos since 2004, when there were around 3,600 black rhinos (now there are 5,055). South Africa introduced limited white rhino hunting in 1968, when there were only 1,800 animals within South Africa (now there are 19,000). We’re curious as to why this particular trophy hunt auction has received such widespread coverage and comment. Websites and newspapers this month have carried many articles and comments about an auction, to be held in Dallas in January 2014, for the right to trophy hunt a black rhino in Namibia.
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