Since paying $350,000 and winning the Dallas Safari Club’s (DSC) chance to shoot a black rhino in the southern African nation of Namibia, Corey Knowlton has faced death threats against himself, his wife, and his children. He’s also been the object of former game show host Bob Barker’s open letter to PETA, in which Barker derided Knowlton’s plans to follow through with the hunt.
On January 16th, Knowlton took the high road and told CNN’s Piers Morgan that Barker “is a well intended person,” but he won’t be talking to Barker unless he wants “to learn about ‘Price is Right’ and…Plinko.”
Knowlton said if he were to somehow talk to Barker about other things, he would simply tell him that “the price is wrong!” on this one.
Since winning the chance to shoot the black rhino, Knowlton said people have told him they want to kill him and his family, then burn them–that they want to “make a ‘Saw’ movie out of [them].”
But Knowlton will not back down. He explained to Morgan that the Namibian government identified a “handful of black rhinos that can be hunted,” and that the southern African country chooses these rhinos because they are at a point in life where they will either kill other rhinos or be killed by them.
In other words, rhinos will die without or the DSC hunt giveaway but with the hunt giveaway, conservationists can ensure that the rhino that dies is an older black rhino chosen by the Namibian government.
Bob Barker wrote that Knowlton is just after a “cheap thrill.”
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