Miles Lappeman stands at the carcass of Longhorn, his 24 year-old Rhino Cow, at Finfoot Lake Reserve, South Africa, on Nov. 24, 2012. Gallo Images/Rex Features/AP

The Dallas Safari Club said Friday it aims to raise up to a million dollars for endangered black rhinoceroses by auctioning off a permit to kill one in Namibia. The move has raised the ire of wildlife preservation organizations, who question the move's ethics.

Ben Carter, executive director of the Dallas Safari Club, told Agence France Presse the Namibian government "selected" his hunting club to auction a black rhino hunting permit for use in one of its national parks. Namibia has an annual quota to kill up to five black rhinos out of the southern African nation's herd population of 1,795 animals.

"First and foremost, this is about saving the black rhino," Carter said.

The permit is expected "to sell for at least $250,000, possibly up to $1 million," and will be auctioned off at the Club’s annual convention from Jan. 9-12 next year. The Conservation Trust Fund for Namibia's Black Rhino will receive 100 percent of the sale price, the Club said.

In 2009, a similar permit fetched $175,000 for the Namibian Game Products Trust Fund, which pays for the species' conservation efforts, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

Black rhinos are internationally considered an endangered species. The World Wildlife Fund estimates only about 4,800 remain in Africa, where rhino horns are a coveted asset. Their value has spurred a lucrative black market in Asia, where some people believe they have special healing powers and the ability to cure cancer.

Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull reported daily attacks from poachers in South Africa kill a rhino almost every day.

"Poachers come by helicopter and dart a rhino from the air with a powerful tranquilizer, a drug three thousand times more powerful than morphine,” he reported.

"As (a rhino) succumbs to deep sedation, they take a chainsaw to her face. The machine's sharp teeth tear into her skull, removing her nasal cavities, exposing parts of her brain," he said. "(The horn) will be sold to a middle man for a small fortune."