Graffiti Artist in Prague Pays Tribute to South Africa’s Tragic Poached Rhino, Hope
Somewhere far away in the Czech Republic is a young graffiti artist whose artwork on the walls of Prague show how his heart bleeds for Africa and the plight of its wildlife. In May this year, Pavel Cisarovsky from Prague happened across the story of Satao on the internet. Satao was the well-known Kenyan elephant, with tusks […]
Somewhere far away in the Czech Republic is a young graffiti artist whose artwork on the walls of Prague show how his heart bleeds for Africa and the plight of its wildlife.
In May this year, Pavel Cisarovsky from Prague happened across the story of Satao on the internet. Satao was the well-known Kenyan elephant, with tusks so long they almost touched the ground, that was killed by poachers with a poisoned arrow in May 2014.
Pavel says: “I only heard about Satao being killed in May 2016, two years after he passed away… and it broke my heart.
“Elephants have always fascinated me. An amazing animal and I’ve loved to draw the elephants since I was a kid. When I saw by mistake, on the internet, that Satao had been killed I felt so bad that I couldn’t sleep.
“Several days later I started looking for more information about Africa and who is killing these amazing animals, and why.”
Africa’s elephants and rhino are being killed by poachers to feed an Asian market that mistakenly believes tusks and horn have medicinal properties and are a sign of high status.
“It was during that research that I found the details of Hope’s story.”
Hope is the rhino in South Africa that made world headlines after she survived a brutal poaching assault in April 2015. Despite several operations to help her recover from having her face mutiliated, Hope sadly died last month.
“Hope was rescued,” says Pavel, “but in the end she passed away as well.
“I love Africa and I will be drawing on the walls of streets so that people will see it and never forget about Satao and Hope. They will know what happened… and maybe the EU (European Union) can help stop this filth!”
Pavel has now created almost 20 huge paintings of Hope and Satao over which people should “pause and reflect”… although he admits some people are bothered that he shows them sad stuff.
A Prague photographer Martin Páv stumbled across Pavel and his wildlife graffiti a fortnight ago, and was very moved: “I think they are worth far more attention than they receive…. and I’m so glad I was lucky enough to meet him.”
The Czech Republic has been instrumental in helping capture 16 suspected members of an alleged highly organised smuggling ring, involving South African national Dawie Groenewald and Czech ‘proxy hunters’ who were shipping horn to Vietnam.
Pavel has never actually visited Africa but he says: “I think I am important in Europe to let people here know what’s going on at Africa.”
Thank you Pavel Cisarovsky!!!
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