“This case really does bring into focus a lot of issues that have been either put in the back burner or conveniently ignored when it comes to rhino conservation,” says Taylor Tench, a senior policy analyst who specializes in rhinos at the Environmental Investigation Agency, a watchdog group with offices in the United States and United Kingdom. And whether this sale could help conservation hinges entirely on the buyer.

Hume announced he wants bidders who have “passion for conserving rhinos and the means to keep the breeding project going”-but exactly who might have the funds and the willingness remains an open question. The sale begins on April 26 and ends on May 1, international Save the Rhino Day. Also for sale are his five hippos 11 giraffe and hundreds of buffalo, sheep, and goats-though not the gigantic horn collection he’s amassed. This month, the rhinos and his entire 21,000-acre farm operation will be put up for auction online, with a starting bid of $10 million.

He started with close to 200 southern white rhinos and now has almost 2,000. Now, about 15 years after he officially launched his farm and still without any legal international trade, the 81-year-old claims he’s reached a financial breaking point. So selling horn, mostly to buyers in Asia for traditional medicine, carvings, and jewelry, could be sustainable-if it was ever legalized, according to his plan.

Made of keratin, the same material as fingernails, rhino horn can grow back at a rate of about four inches per year. With a legal rhino horn trade and a consistent supply from farms like his, he reasoned, horn prices would eventually drop and make poaching less attractive. He’d fund the operation by sawing off and selling his animals’ horns. To combat rhino poaching, the South African entrepreneur aimed to create a massive rhinoceros breeding farm where the animals would be kept safe and their numbers could flourish on his vast, privately owned savanna.

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