Hunting Permit for Rare Black Rhino Sells for $350K

The good news for the 4,000 black rhinos left on the planet: A Dallas hunting club has $350,000 with your name on it. The bad news: One anonymous hunter paid that to make your number 3,999. As the AP reports, the Dallas Safari Club last night held its controversial auction for a hunting permit for one of the critters, and the winning bid came in at $350,000—a hefty sum, but not quite the $1 million that had been hoped for. The permit is one of five offered annually by Namibia, and is the first offered outside that nation.

Wildlife and animal rights groups howled over the auction, with one activist saying, "This auction is telling the world that an American will pay anything to kill their species. This is, in fact, making a spectacle of killing an endangered species." The Safari Club defended the auction, with its executive director noting that the animal to be hunted will be old, male, and non-breeding. (More black rhino stories.)