Duke and Duchess of Sussex do good to conserve elephants on World Elephant Day

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have revealed candid photos from their Africa trip in honor of World Elephant Day.

The royal couple has worked with the Elephants Without Borders organization in Botswana, and they have reflected on the impact made after the group was able to fit 25 of the majestic animals with satellite navigation collars after a social media drive last month.

On Monday (12.08.19) afternoon, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s official Instagram account has published a series of candid snaps from their trip two years ago, alongside a lengthy statement about the success of the work itself. The couple teamed up with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres for the summer campaign, and the newest collared creature has been named in her honor.

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🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘 Today is #WorldElephantDay and we are pleased to announce that since we followed our friends at @ElephantswithoutBorders (EWB) on Instagram in July, when we were celebrating the environment, you and our friend @TheEllenFund (@TheEllenShow) have spread the word and EWB have been able to help protect 25 elephants by fitting them with satellite navigation collars! These collars allow the team at EWB to track the elephants, as well as to learn their essential migratory patterns to keep their corridors safe and open so future generations of elephants can roam freely. In honour of this amazing support, EWB have named their most recently collared Elephant…ELLEN! We can’t wait to see where she will go! 🐘 Two years ago on World Elephant Day, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined Dr Chase to help in this conservation effort. Below, a few words from Mike and his partner Kelly at EWB: • ‘Today is a day to honor and celebrate the majestic elephant and to make a strong stand for conserving and protecting one of the world’s most beloved animals. elephants are intelligent, sentient beings capable of emotions from joy to grief. They are ‘environmental engineers,’ a key-stone umbrella species, and the fight to save them is in effect, a fight to save entire ecosystems and all wildlife. Today elephants are facing many challenges; habitat loss and competition for resources creates conflict with humans, climate change and fires destroy much needed resources and poaching for the demand of ivory makes elephants bigger targets than ever. African elephants are especially prone to human-wildlife conflict because of their large home ranges. Finding, preserving and creating elephant corridors is therefore of great importance in helping to maintain habitats suitable for movement and minimising human-elephant conflict. Corridors are a mitigation technique to better the livelihoods of local communities and the elephants themselves, by providing environment and ample space for wildlife to navigate from one habitat patch to another, without affecting the livelihoods of communities.’ • EWB – Dr Mike Chase, Ms Kelly Landen . 📸 by DOS © SussexRoyal Additional photos: EWB

A post shared by The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (@sussexroyal) on Aug 12, 2019 at 6:00am PDT

Captioning the photos, the Duke and Duchess added: “Today is #WorldElephantDay and we are pleased to announce that since we followed our friends at @ElephantswithoutBorders (EWB) on Instagram in July, when we were celebrating the environment, you and our friend @TheEllenFund (@TheEllenShow) have spread the word and EWB has been able to help protect 25 elephants by fitting them with satellite navigation collars!

“These collars allow the team at EWB to track the elephants, as well as to learn their essential migratory patterns to keep their corridors safe and open so future generations of elephants can roam freely.

“In honor of this amazing support, EWB has named they’re most recently collared Elephant…ELLEN! We can’t wait to see where she will go!”

As well as teaming up with Elephants Without Borders, Prince Harry has also worked with Arica Parks on a major relocation project in Malawi, while Prince William is the Royal Patron of British charity Tusk Trust.