Queen Elizabeth has opened a new Elephant Care Centre at Whipsnade Zoo.
The 90-year-old royal was accompanied by her husband Prince Philip to the zoo in Bedfordshire on Tuesday (12.04.17) where they opened the new care centre for the endangered Asian elephants.
The royal couple started the day by meeting the zookeepers and architects responsible for the new facility, which stretches out to 30 acres of rolling paddocks.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip then got the chance to feed a banana to one of the nine elephants owned by the zoo, in a moment showcased in a video posted by the Royal Family Twitter account.
The video was captioned: "Her Majesty and The Duke get the chance to hand feed one of the elephants a delicious banana."
Another tweet from the account showed a picture of the two royals looking at the elephants – which have become an endangered species in the wild due to habitat loss, human conflict, and poaching – in the indoor part of the enclosure.
The tweet read: "The Centre is home to a herd of nine Asian elephants and is set in 30 acres of land, including baby Elizabeth – named after Her Majesty."
Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the centre comes as it was recently reported she would be opening a controversial ivory exhibition at her Sandringham estate.
Most of the items in the collection were gifted to the royal family by Indian nobility in the 19th and early 20th century, before the use and trade of ivory – which is traditionally made from the tusks of elephants – became controversial due to its contribution to the severely declining elephant population.
However, the exhibition is likely to cause upset amongst the royal family, as the monarch’s grandson Prince William has long since been a campaigner for the ban of ivory trade.
The 34-year-old Prince previously spoke out about the vicious slaughter of elephants for their tusks after visiting a sanctuary for the animals in China in 2015.
He said at the time: "Ending demand for ivory is down to citizens across the world.
"No tradition or fashion is worth the extinction of an entire species, and no criminal gang should be allowed to destroy any part of nature.
"I am sure there are millions of people who share this conviction.
"It is appalling that elephants – and many others – may be extinct in the wild in our lifetimes, and that we seem to be hurtling towards that tragic outcome.
"The extinction of animals such as elephants, rhinos and pangolins would be an immeasurable loss to the whole of humanity."
Queen Elizabeth opens Elephant Care Centre at Whipsnade Zoo
