LONDON -- Britain's Prince Harry has made an emotional appeal on Instagram about animal conservation during a trip to South Africa.
The prince, who is photographed with an elephant, shared some thoughts he's had during his trip to Kruger National Park where he met people 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?" he writes in the post on Wednesday.
"Seeing huge carcasses of rhinos and elephants scattered across Africa, with their horns and tusks missing is a pointless waste of beauty."
In another post he hand feeds a baby rhino whose mother was killed by poachers. "The youngest rhino was called Don. He was just two months old when he was found in Kruger National Park," he writes.
A video posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 2, 2015 at 2:35am PST
He also shared photos of a project that de-horns rhinos in an effort to deter poachers.
A photo posted by Kensington Palace (@kensingtonroyal) on Dec 2, 2015 at 2:24am PST
Last week, a South African judge rescinded a nearly seven-year-old moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horns, though the ban will stay in place for now pending an appeal by South Africa's environment ministry.
An international ban on the rhino horn trade has been in place since 1977. Harry spent three months this year working on conservation projects in southern Africa.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press.