Man Who Hunted Rhino for $350K Explains Key Detail 'People Don't Understand' About Big Game Hunting

A Texas man who paid $350,000 to hunt a black rhino earlier this year explained Monday evening a detail that he feels many people are unaware of.

Corey Knowlton told CNN he received countless death threats following his controversial Namibia hunt, but added that they had not discouraged him from continuing with the sport in the future.

[sharequote="center"]"[T]he vast majority of the dollars protecting these animals are from legal hunting."[/sharequote]

"What you need to understand, I think the population is missing on this, is the vast majority of this hunting habitat, especially for lions, is hunting areas. And the vast majority of the dollars protecting these animals are from legal hunting," he said.

"The vast majority of the dollars that protect these animals are from legal hunting." - Big game hunter. @CNN https://t.co/7vIzccwO6a

— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) August 3, 2015

The topic of big game hunting has been hurled into the national conversation after an American dentist killed a famed African lion named Cecil.

Knowlton, however, insisted the individuals outraged weren't looking at the big picture.

"So keep this in mind too: the people that are the game scouts in these areas and the people who are prosecuting these crimes ... their salaries are paid for with hunters' dollars. So if you take this out of it, you take it out, you are losing a gigantic area of habitat, you lose the prey animals, you lose the whole situation," he said.

The Texas hunter concluded saying it was "absolutely" worth taking death threats from "people who don't understand the real reality of the situation in Africa and the reality of what it takes to keep these animals on the face of the Earth."

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