Hunter Sues Delta Over Trophy Rhino

A Dallas big-game hunter has filed a lawsuit against Delta Air Lines over the company’s refusal to ship his legally harvested rhinoceros carcass from Namibia to the United States.

Corey Knowlton, who legally hunted and harvested the black rhinoceros in May, is targeting Delta’s embargo on transporting African trophies, put in place after the widespread public overreaction to an American dentist legally killing a lion in Zimbabwe this summer. According to media reports on the lawsuit, Knowlton contends that safari hunting is the “backbone of anti-poaching” in Africa and is part of a “concerted management effort” to allow people and wildlife to coexist.

Knowlton, along with five other organizations including the Dallas Safari Club and Houston Safari Club, filed the suit on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Dallas. The complaint states that as a common carrier, it is illegal for Delta to “respond to pressure, discriminate against an unpopular but non-hazardous type of cargo and refuse to carry it.”