By Jim Hightower
Have you
ever heard of the rabbit hunter’s nightmare?
A guy dreams that he and a few of
his buddies have fanned out across some brushland to scare-up and shoot a few
hares. They kill a couple, but then, one of the hunting buddies who’d headed
down a slope into a thicket on the right suddenly comes bolting up the slope,
all wild-eyed and screaming at the others: “Run, run — the rabbits have guns!”
I
thought of this recalibration of the hunting equation when I read that an outfit
called the “Dallas Safari Club” had come up with a truly novel idea for saving
Namibia’s rare Black Rhinoceros, which is teetering on the edge of extinction.
Several hundred thousand of these unique animals existed a century ago, but
only 1,800 remain in this African nation today.
So,
thinking waaaay out of the box, the safari club says it will contribute to the
Black Rhino conservation cause by auctioning off to one of the club’s lucky
members the chance to [WARNING: The following could make your head explode] go
to Namibia with a really big gun, and shoot one of the magnificent, endangered
creatures dead. Yes, to save the black rhino, kill it.
And, yes
the head of the deceased will be severed, stuffed, mounted, and shipped back to
the USA as a trophy for the shooter’s den. To the club’s credit, every dime from
the auction will go to — oh, the irony — Namibia’s Black Rhino Conservation
Fund.
Back to
the rabbit scenario, wouldn't the club’s big game safari be fairer if
high-powered guns were barred, and the winning bidder had to try executing the
rhino with a Swiss Army knife?
OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator,
writer, and public speaker. He’s also editor of the populist newsletter, The
Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org