Hunting Controversy

The Smithsonian Institution was happy to accept $20 million from former Seattle Seahawks owner Kenneth E. Behring and would like to take a more controversial gift from him as well the carcass of one of the world’s most-endangered animals. Smithsonian scientists have asked permission to import the carcass of a bighorn sheep that Behring shot on a big-game hunting trip in Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union in 1997. But the Humane Society of the United States said Thursday the Smithsonian is doing a favor for its leading donor by lending his trophy hunting the legitimacy of scientific research. The museum “is giving this guy a credible defense for an activity that is repugnant and counter to any sensible principle of conservation,” Humane Society vice president Wayne Pacelle said. Russian scientists estimate only about 100 of the sheep, known as the Kara-Tau argali, remain in the wild.