Prince Harry accused of cropping out elephant’s tethered leg in picture

Prince Harry has been accused of cropping a photo of an elephant which was taken on a visit to Malawi to hide the tether around its leg on Instagram.

The image was shared on the @sussexroyal account, which belongs to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, to celebrate Earth Day.

The picture shows a man touching the tusk of an elephant, which is visible, except for its hind legs.

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

On Instagram, the caption refers to the project Harry was working on, which aimed to relocate hundreds of elephants to conservation parks, but not the fact that the animals were tranquillised and tethered, as the press release states.

The caption 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.’

The Duke of Sussex 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 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.’

A royal source said the picture was ‘not cropped deliberately and has been around since 2016 and widely shared’.