Club may cancel rhinoceros hunt
Club may cancel rhinoceros hunt
DALLAS (AP) — A Texas hunting club that auctioned off a permit to shoot an endangered black rhinoceros in Africa said it will cancel the hunt if a federal agency denies the winning bidder’s request to bring the dead animal back to the U.S. as a trophy.
Corey Knowlton bid $350,000 at a January auction that the Dallas Safari Club billed as a fundraising effort to save the endangered species. Last spring, he applied for a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would enable him to import the rhino’s body following the hunt in Namibia. But he’s still waiting to hear back.
The agency is applying extra scrutiny to Knowlton’s request because of the rise in poaching, said spokesman Gavin Shire.
If the permit is denied, the safari club plans to refund Knowlton’s money that was pledged to a rhino conservation fund in the southwestern African country.
‘Dumb, Dumber’ No. 1 in theaters
NEW YORK (AP) — At the movies, idiocy never goes out of style.
Twenty years after the 1994 original, “Dumb and Dumber To” opened with $38.1 million at the weekend box office, according to studio estimates Sunday. The Universal sequel debuted almost exactly two decades after the Farrelly brothers first introduced the Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels low-IQ duo.
“Dumb and Dumber To” edged out the animated Disney adventure “Big Hero 6,” which took in $36 million in its second week. Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic “Interstellar” slid to third in its second week with an estimated $29.2 million. The film continues to blast off overseas, where it took in $106 million over the weekend.