{"id":2639,"date":"2014-01-16T09:06:55","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T17:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/?p=2639"},"modified":"2014-01-25T09:26:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T17:26:41","slug":"texas-rhino-hunt-auction-winner-fears-for-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalliberationpressoffice.org\/NAALPO\/2014\/01\/16\/texas-rhino-hunt-auction-winner-fears-for-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Rhino hunt auction winner fears for safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[Press Office note: The Namibian<\/span> newspaper has reported that its website and the website of a travel company in Namibia were targeted by the hacktivist network Anonymous in protest of a decision by the government of Namibia to allow the hunting of endangered black rhinos.]<\/p>\n

Associated Press<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"RhinoHunter\"<\/a>DALLAS \u2014 A North Texas man who paid $350,000 for the right to hunt an endangered African black rhino said he\u2019s had to hire full-time security due to death threats after his name was leaked onto the Internet.Corey Knowlton told Dallas television stations WFAA and KTVT that he won last week\u2019s Dallas Safari Club auction to hunt a black rhino in the African nation of Namibia. The club says the permit was auctioned to raise money for efforts to protect and conserve the species.<\/article>\n<\/div>\n
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\u00a0An estimated 4,000 black rhinos remain in the wild, and the auction drew critics who said all members of an endangered species deserve protection.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a hunter,\u201d Knowlton told WFAA. \u201cI want to experience a black rhino. I want to be intimately involved with a black rhino. If I go over there and shoot it or not shoot it, it\u2019s beyond the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowlton lives in Royse City, about 30 miles outside Dallas, and leads international hunting trips for a Virginia-based company, The Hunting Consortium.<\/p>\n

He told KTVT that threats made to organizers before the auction led the Safari Club to contact him and see if he would bid. Knowlton and a silent partner raised the money to make the bid, he said.<\/p>\n

His name was posted on Facebook and then picked up by websites that publicized his involvement in the auction. He told KTVT that since then, he\u2019s feared for his family\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re wanting to kill me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re wanting to kill my children. They\u2019re wanting to skin us alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The club says the Namibian rhino in question is older, male and nonbreeding \u2014 and that the animal was likely to be targeted for removal anyway because it was becoming aggressive.<\/p>\n

Knowlton said he believed the hunt would be managed well and that the money would go to save rhinos in the end.<\/p>\n

Of critics who had written thousands of comments on his Facebook page and online, Knowlton said: \u201cThey don\u2019t know who I am. They don\u2019t know what I\u2019m about. They don\u2019t even understand the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowlton did not return phone and email messages from The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Press Office note: The Namibian newspaper has reported that its website and the website of a travel company in Namibia were targeted by the hacktivist network Anonymous in protest of a decision by the government of Namibia to allow the hunting of endangered black rhinos.] Associated Press DALLAS \u2014 A North Texas man who paid … <\/p>\n

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