PrimeTime: Killing Rare Animals
April 19 -- California businessman Kenneth Behring has given the Smithsonian Institution more money than anyone has ever given any American museum: $100 million.
"I love animals. I go to Africa a lot and I just want all the kids to have the enjoyment that I've had," he says of his donation to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as well as the Institution's Museum of American History.
But Behring, former owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team, is also one of the world's leading big game trophy hunters, who has gone after some of the rarest animals in the world.
"This is a man who has killed hundreds of different big game animals across the world," Wayne Pacelle of the Humane Society of the United States tells ABCNEWS' Brian Ross. Pacelle also suggests Behring has tried to use the Smithsonian to circumvent U.S. laws that prohibit the import of endangered species.
"No natural history museum should be aiding and abetting trophy hunters killing the world's rarest animals," says Pacelle. "What signal does this send for the world's most prestigious natural history museum to be aligned with people who kill the world's rarest animals?"
'A Real Indiana Jones'
Behring is a top member of a little known but well-connected group called the Safari Club International, an organization committed to wildlife conservation — and to hunters' rights. Among the Safari Club's 42,000 members are many well-known figures, including Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and former President Bush, an honorary lifetime member.
But for all its powerful connections, some say the Safari Club's system of awards and honors laid out in its trophy guidebooks has fostered a kind of trophy madness among some of its wealthiest members.
A hunting guide at a Safari Club convention called Behring "a real Indiana Jones." With more than 125 kills recorded in the official trophy record book, he is also "the largest donor to the Safari Club International," says Pacelle.
"They're racing against one another to kill more animals, rarer animals and bigger animals so they can be first in the trophy guidebook … and say, 'I shot one that's bigger than yours,'" says Pacelle, who adds that the Safari Club has in fact offered trophies for killing animals that are considered endangered or threatened.
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