‘Rhino Man’ Takes a Walk on Wild Side : Endangered: Kenyan stops on 40-mile trek to pitch a plea to Kearny High students for protection of the rhinoceros.

The world’s “Rhino Man,” Kenyan Michael Werikhe, brought the plight of the powerful animal home to 100 Kearny High School students Wednesday who had thought of a rhinoceros--despite its ancestry going back tens of millions of years--as merely a squat, homely animal in a zoo.

The science students listened intently on the campus lawn as the soft-spoken Werikhe stopped to talk while passing by on a two-day, 40-mile walk from the San Diego Wild Animal Park to the San Diego Zoo to publicize the perilous state of the animal’s future.

In particular, Werikhe pitched his plea for support to the many Asian student immigrants who populate the Kearny Mesa campus, passing among the students a rhino horn to dispel the folk myth--popular throughout Asia--that it can be used as a medicine to control ailments ranging from backaches to high blood pressure.

Rhinos have been slaughtered illegally throughout Africa for their horns, which are then shipped to Asia for as much as $20,000 each. High-tech poaching has dropped the animal’s numbers precipitously in recent years, from 70,000 as late as 1970 to less than 8,000 today.

“The horn is just compact hair, much (like the material) which makes up finger nails,” Werikhe explained to the students.

“I’m from Asia and I didn’t know,” one student exclaimed after handling the horn.

Since 1982, Werikhe has walked across Africa and Europe as part of tireless efforts to raise public consciousness and vital conservation funds totaling more than $1 million to support genetic research and to secure nature preserves for the estimated 8,000 rhinos that remain in Africa and Asia.

His appearance in San Diego coincides with the opening today of a major international conference in San Diego where scientists will plan specific steps to increase chances for the species’ survival. He will spend the next several months walking along the East Coast, hoping to raise $2 million by the time he reaches Washington, D.C., in September.

Werikhe urged the students Wednesday to become involved in some way, saying that “if the cause is good, people will listen to you . . . you can do something, just like I did.”

The 34-year-old Werikhe left his job in 1982 with the Kenyan Wildlife Service after he became depressed over counting horns and other rhino parts left by poachers. He now works for an auto company but spends much of his time promoting the rhino’s cause.

Last year, he was the recipient of the first Goldman Environmental Prize for international conservation. He was named to the United Nations “Global 500” in 1989 for his environmental efforts. His fellow Kenyans nicknamed him “Rhino Man” for his work.

“I was impressed,” Kearny senior Jonathan Payton said after talking with Werikhe. “The rhino symbolizes life. The rhino stands for nobleness. It’s majestic.

You can’t just go around killing things. It’s not our choice.”