So you would prefer that the government game managers shoot it instead and the death of the animal not draw in funds to manage the breeding stock, but draw in nothing? Game management involves culling, like it or not, and this animal would have to nbe culled, like it or not, by a responsible game manager who has a limited budget, for the benefit of the whole herd. This is the best way to accomplish the necessary task and it benefits the game program as a whole.
The other alternative would be to sell and ship it to a zoo, but western zoos are also invested in the preservation of the species, in stock management, and would not be very interested in an infertile male that would have nothing to add to their breeding program- it would consume resources and take the space that could otherwise be occupied by a productive stud.
I suppose it could be sold to a nonwestern zoo that’s only interested in show-and-tell but those places’ conditions tend to be horrid and an animal that spent 17 years in the wild would go insane in such close confinement.
Maybe a drive thru theme park... but then they tend to prefer gentler animals for liability reasons, and I doubt one could drum up $350,000 bucks to help the othrt rhinos in the native range.
Years ago the wood duck was driven nearly to extinction- not by hunters but by farmers and landowners who cut the dead wood on their lands for fuel, safety issues, and often just for neatness, and in the process destroyed the dead trees with woodpecker cavities in them that the wood duck depends on for nesting. But then some hunters joined forces as “Ducks Unlimited” and began to buy up habitate for these birds where they could and on lands where the dead trees were missing they installed nesting boxes on poles all over the north woodlands. The hunters brought the duck back from near extinction in short order, and the lands the hunters bought and preserved privately for the benefit of ducks also provided prime habitat for beaver, mink, flying squirrels, reptiles and a whole host of other species down to aquatic dragonflies and songbirds. It would not have happened but for some guys wanting to preserve the most beautiful duck in North America... so they could hunt it.
I don't care who shoots it. Kindly see my post #43. I would just have preferred more honesty from the hunter. Or even better, I would have preferred that he refrain from commenting at all.
Either way, no big deal in the greater scheme of things.