The Urban Pantheist

There are fewer than 5000 black rhinoceroses left on earth, down from several hundred thousand individuals a century ago. There are a few different subspecies, one of which, the western black rhino, was officially declared extinct last year. The remaining animals exist in scattered locations in about nine or ten African nations, many on managed conservation land. Unfortunately animals in these areas are vulnerable to poachers, who are motivated by the lucrative market in rhino horn "medicines" in Asia. (Which, it probably doesn't need to be said, are medicines only in the deluded fantasies of the afflicted.)

Each African nation manages their wildlife and ecosystems in their own way, with varying degrees of resource commitment and political will. Namibia, where about one third of the black rhino population lives, allows local communities to have some agency in managing their wildlife. Wildlife management includes hunting, both for subsistence and for sport. As in the US, one important source of conservation money is the sale of hunting licenses. Namibia, I hasten to point out, is not selling licenses for the hunting of black rhinos in order to sell their horn. However they do auction off five licenses per year to kill five individuals out of a population of a critically endangered species.

The problem is that the many of these scattered populations of black rhinos are skewed male. There are more male rhinos than are needed to sustain the population. These "extra" males compete with the females for food resources, may kill females and calfs, and one study suggest that their very presence results in lower breeding success in the population. Wildlife managers found themselves in the strange position of recommending killing some animals now to ensure more animals in the future.

Since the opportunity to legally hunt a black rhinoceros is extremely rare, the permits to do so are very valuable. They are auctioned off to the highest bidders, a process which brings the program into the public eye every so often. At the moment, there is much attention being paid to a man named Corey Knowlton, a professional hunter who has hosted hunting television shows, leads high-profile hunting trips, and has personally killed 120 species of animals in the course of them. Knowlton had the winning bid on one of the five licenses, paying $350,000 for the privilege.

Knowlton describes himself as a conservationist, and I honestly don't doubt that he is one. Faced with the criticism that he kills for the thrill of it, he replied "The thrill is knowing that we are preserving wildlife resources, not for the next generation, but for eons." The media coverage around this issue has drifted away from the ethics of the planned hunt to the death threats that Knowlton is now receiving.

I don't believe any of my friends, who with horror posted versions of this story on facebook, are the type of people who would send death threats to someone over this issue. But many of my friends are very upset about it, mainly because of the way the story was framed--as a piece of artillery in the culture war. On one side you have animal lovers and conservationists (who are not always allies--and probably wouldn't be on this issue if the conservationists were better informed) and on the other side you have hunters, who should be conservationists (and mostly are, and historically have been). The first side could be roughly called the left side of the issue, and let's call the hunters' side the right (wing) side. Left wingers are nervous about guns--not all left wingers want to restrict gun ownership, but most of the people who do definitely identify with the left wing. The right wing however has become incredibly extreme on this issue. The gun lobby and the media that are aligned with them have conjured terrible narratives about an authoritarian left wing movement to restrict all guns--this has not coincidentally resulted in the record high sales of firearms in the US.

What I'm saying is that while this issue should be considered on its conservation merits (is culling 5 individual males a good strategy for the long term sustainability of the species?) it is instead part of a left versus right circus of name calling and death threats. I lay much of the blame at the feet of my allies on the left (oh, sorry, my bias is deeply deeply liberal, did I not reveal that yet?) for cherry-picking the parts of the story that they knew would inflame the like-minded. TEXAS TROPHY HUNTER BIDS OVER A THIRD OF A MILLION DOLLARS TO KILL ENDANGERED BLACK RHINO. My reaction, as a newly outed liberal, is this: Is a high-profile auction of a hunting license really the best way to promote the protection of a critically endangered species?

In other words, the real problem here is that the conservation groups in Namibia have TERRIBLE public relations people. The Knowlton family Christmas Card from 2012 doesn't do anything to help the matter.

Great presentation from the International Rhino Foundation today, long story short: rhinos are still threatened by trade in rhino horn, driven mainly by bunk medicinal uses.

After the talk, a couple zookeepers were in conversation, one expressing befuddlement that someone could believe that a particular form of ground keratin possesses special powers. I butt in, eating a cracker: "could you believe that this simple cracker can transubstatiate into the flesh of a god?"