How did Prince William end up promoting a cruel China elephant circus?
When British royal, a vocal campaigner for the rights of elephants, visited a Yunnan conservation park recently, he appeared unaware the establishment operated an exploitative circus. How, asks Simon Parry, could the prince have been so poorly advised?
It was a moment of toe-curling embarrassment that marred the end of the most important visit to China by a member of the British royal family since Queen Elizabeth's 1986 tour, and cast an elephant-sized shadow over the environmental credentials of Prince William.
Midway through a tour of a wildlife park in rural Yunnan province, Mark Stone, a reporter from Sky TV's Beijing bureau, stepped to the front of the press pack and shouted: "Your Royal Highness - have you been told about the performing elephants next door?"
The second in line to the British throne stared at Stone in stunned silence for a moment before turning on his heel and walking briskly away, accompanied by Chinese officials, as the journalist called out: "The Chinese are using elephants to play football, Your Royal Highness."
The televised encounter was an ignominious end to an otherwise successful solo tour of Japan and China that saw Prince William give Sino-British ties a softer, fuzzier feel by meeting President Xi Jinping and promoting animated character Shaun the Sheep and perennial children's favourite Paddington Bear in Beijing and Shanghai. But his decision to call in on Wild Elephant Valley, in Xishuangbanna, for a photo shoot with a rescued elephant plunged the tour into controversy. It also raises questions about why the prince, patron of the wildlife conservation charity Tusk and a vocal campaigner against the ivory trade, was allowed by his high-powered team of advisers to visit a park that is better known, locally, for its circus-style degradation of elephants than for its conservation and rescue work.
been driven to the point of extinction in southwest China by hunting, deforestation and rapid urban development. The number of elephants in the wild in Yunnan, however, has reportedly doubled to about 300 recently, thanks in part to the establishment of reserves, government-financed feeding programmes and strict laws that threaten poachers with the death penalty.
Wild Elephant Valley maintains a 3.6 sq km fenced-in reserve - visitors can cross it on a 2km-long cable car ride - in which, the management claim, 150 elephants roam free. (That ratio seems incredibly tight given that, according to the Global Sanctuary for Elephants, a single Asian female has a range of up to 400 sq km and a male almost double that.)