Prince Harry shares heartbreaking picture cradling black rhino: ‘Her face was hacked off- help her’

Kensington Palace has shared a brutal photo taken by Prince Harry highlighting the plight of African rhinos

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by Jessica Anais Rach |
Published on

Just when we thought we couldn't love Prince Harry any more, the 31-year-old has used snaps from his recent trip to South Africa to plead for donations to local wildlife charities.

And one of his more hard-hitting snaps shows a a female black rhino, who tragically had her horn hacked of whilst she was alive.

Sharing Prince Harry's picture on their Instagram account, Kensington Palace wrote:

"Prince Harry has released this personal photo taken during his summer visit to southern Africa.

"Here Prince Harry shares his story behind the photograph... "By this point many people will have heard of ‘Hope’, a young female black rhino that was brutally wounded by poachers in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This was the second operation to try to save this animal’s life.

"Some poachers use a dart gun and tranquilize the animal so as to not have to fire a shot that would be heard. They then hack their face off while the animal is paralysed before running off with the horn. Local communities saw her stumbling through the bush and then alerted the authorities. Thanks to Dr William Fowlds and his team, Hope survived and is making a speedy recovery.

"I stared into her eyes while operating on her and thought at first that it would have been better and fairer to put her down rather than put her through the pain. Afterwards I was told of another female called Thandi who was in a similar state in 2012. She now has a baby calf called Thembi.

"Every single rhino matters. If you want to help have a look at: www.wildernessFoundation.co.za."

Prince Harry previously aired his frustrations on the poaching industry during a summer visit to Tanzania, Botswana and Namibia, highlighting the 'urgent challenges faced by people on the ground working to protect Africa's most endangered animals'.

"How can it be that 30,000 elephants were slaughtered last year alone? None of them had names, so do we not care? And for what? Their tusks? Seeing huge carcasses of rhinos and elephants scattered across Africa, with their horns and tusks missing is a pointless waste of beauty", he wrote.

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