Prince Harry accused of cropping out elephant’s tethered leg in picture of Malawi visit to mark Earth Day

A photo of an elephant shared on the Instagram page of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has landed Prince Harry in hot water.

Prince Harry has found himself in hot water, being accused of cropping a photo of an elephant taken on an African tour to hide the tether around its leg on Instagram.

The image was posted to the @sussexroyal account belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to celebrate Earth Day last week.

The image shows a man touching the tusk of an elephant that is visible except for its hind legs.

This is the cropped photo posted to the @sussexroyal Instagram account for Earth Day.

The original image, however, which appears in a 2016 press release from Kensington Palace about Harry’s trip to Malawi, shows a wider picture featuring the elephant’s tethered hind leg.

The original photo shows a tether around the hind leg of the animal, which had also been tranquillised. Picture: Sussex Royal/Royal.uk

On Instagram, the caption refers to Harry’s project, which aimed to relocate hundreds of elephants to conservation parks, with no mention the animals were tranquillised and tethered as the press release states.

It reads: “When a fenced area passes its carrying capacity for elephants, they start to encroach into farmland causing havoc for communities.

“Here @AfricanParksNetwork relocated 500 Elephants to another park within Malawi to reduce the pressure on human wildlife conflict and create more dispersed tourism.”

Now the Duke has been criticised for concealing the whole truth on the social media platform, as he chose to crop the rope from his Earth Day post.

Wildlife photographer Christiaan Kotze told the Mail Online: “He (Harry) is on the front line and has access that very few people including professional photographers would ever dream of having.

“If these are really his best images, he has not used the opportunity to its full extent.”

Many of the huge elephants Harry and Meghan visited during a trip to Malawi were sedated and tethered in order to move them to conservation parks.

Quoted speaking about the visit in 2016, the Prince said: “This young male was fighting the drug and headed towards the trees, which would have made it very difficult for us to get him on the truck.

“This big bull (male) elephant refused to lie down after it had been darted with tranquilliser. After about seven minutes, the drug began to take effect and the elephant became semi-comatose, but it continued to shuffle for a while.”

According to Metro UK, a royal source said the picture was “not cropped deliberately and has been around since 2016 and widely shared”.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission