Marching to preserve elephants and rhinos

Animals find support in Lawrenceville

About 75 people marched peacefully through Lawrenceville Saturday, carrying signs that said “Walk Against Extinction” and “End The Ivory Trade.” They wore T-shirts with pictures of magnificent African animals as part of the Global March for Elephants and Rhinos.

“In the two hours we are here, eight elephants and one rhinoceros will be killed,” said Matt Bracken.

Mr. Bracken, 44, has volunteered as an anti-poaching ranger in South Africa and Mozambique. In 2014 he founded the Wild and Free Foundation, which is working to stop the slaughter of elephants killed for their ivory tusks and rhinos killed for their horns.

“In Vietnam they pay poachers $1 million for two rhino horns,” he told marchers. The two natives who actually kill the endangered animals will get $25,000 each. He said most of the million dollars will go to “organized crime kingpins who live far away in Asia.”

In recent years 35,000 elephants and 1,000 rhinos have been killed by poachers each year, Mr. Bracken said. If the killing continues at the current rate, rhinos will be extinct in the wild by 2022.

Mr. Bracken spends most of his time in South Africa and Mozambique, and the rest of it in Fox Chapel. He’s a native of Minnesota.

Dogs and children also joined the one-mile trek to Arsenal Park, walking past the shops and restaurants of Butler Street.

Riding in a stroller, Trinity Slater, 8 months old, of Cranberry, wore a white T-shirt with a pink elephant. Trinity is the niece of Kaitlyn Bradley, who organized the Pittsburgh march.

“I’m not a conservationist, and I’ve never been to Africa, but I love animals and I wanted to do something to help,” said Ms. Bradley, who works Downtown

as a paralegal.

Marches were held in 138 cities around the world Saturday, coinciding with the opening in Johannesburg, South Africa, of the 17th annual Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species .

Attorney Joe Moran and his wife, Anita, of Aspinwall, walked with Mila, 5, a Czechbred German shepherd they adopted from an animal shelter. They help endangered species in another way, by chairing the Summer Safari fundraiser for the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. The zoo has rhinos and a successful elephant breeding program.

Rosie Whitehead, 12, of South Fayette, wore a gray rubber elephant trunk on her face. She was there with her grandmother, Sandy Callan of South Fayette, and her aunt, Laura Miller of Bethel Park.

Mrs. Miller carried a sign saying she was marching for an elephant named Oltaiyoni who is “an ivory orphan.”

Mrs. Miller “fosters” Oltaiyoni, paying money to support the elephant on a wildlife preserve in Kenya. Young elephants are orphaned when their mothers are killed by ivory poachers, she explained.

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust cares for orphaned elephants until they can be returned to the wild, Mrs. Miller said.

Mr. Bracken and the Wild and Free Foundation still support the anti-poaching rangers hired by African governments and private wildlife preserves. But he’s also trying to help the African residents who have no land, no jobs, no hope and no way to legally get food for their families.

“It’s called poaching for the pot,” killing elephants and rhinos for food, not for their tusks and horns, Mr. Bracken said. He hopes his foundation can educate them and help them raise and hunt animals, including antelopes and wart hogs, that are not endangered.