We have a big cheer today for 9-year-old Kate Gilman Williams who documents the safari she took with her family in South Africa and Kenya in her new book, “Let’s Go on Safari.”

She wrote the book with the help of her safari driver, Michelle Campbell, and they document all the experiences Gilman Williams had and what she learned about animals on the trip including the danger poachers pose to wildlife. She told Austin radio station, Austin 360, that a rhinoceros is killed every eight hours and about 100 elephants a day are killed by humans and that Campbell showed them snares that poachers leave to entrap animals.

Gilman Williams says she wanted to do something to help stop that practice, and that’s when she got the idea to write a book. It took her and Campbell about a year to write the book and she even enlisted the help of kids at her elementary school to be part of an editing panel to give her feedback on the book to help her improve it.

She also found partner organizations like the Austin-based Global Wildlife Conservation, which is working to save animals like the Javan rhinoceros and the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya that raises orphaned elephants and returns them to the wild and a portion of the sales of the book will be donated to these organizations.

“I always tell kids, ‘Advocacy has no age limits,’” she says. She hopes that after kids read her book, they will find a way to help animals.

We’re happy to see that Gilman Williams was inspired to take action to protect African wildlife after learning how detrimental hunting is to many species survival. Friends of Animals’ past anti-poaching work included providing airplanes to many African countries including Kenya Wildlife Service as well as supporting training for pilots. We have also currently been working to put an end to trophy hunting with our Big 5 African Trophies Act that would ban the importation, possession, sale or transportation in New York of the African elephant, lion, leopard, and black and white rhinos or their body parts.

Learn more about Gilman Williams and see how to order the book on their website www.kidscansaveanimals.com