It was only a matter of time before Harry and Meghan’s independent Instagram account caused some kind of scandal.

To celebrate Earth Day, a photo was shared to the @sussexroyal account showing a man touching an elephant’s tusk.

The original photo was taken in Malawi and appeared in a 2016 press release from Kensington Palace about Harry’s trip there and his work with elephant conservation, reports Metro.

In the original photo, the elephant’s leg was tethered. In the new updated photo, the tether is cropped out of the image.

Before:

After:

The post on Instagram refers to the project Harry was working on, which aimed to relocate hundreds of elephants to conservation parks. It doesn’t mention that the elephants were tranquilised and tethered.

Although I don’t know how else you’d safely relocate an elephant.

Check out this video of one taking on a Land Rover.

Anyway, people are now calling Harry dishonest for cropping the pic.

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.’

Whatever. The photo has been widely circulated since 2016. No one was hiding anything.

If you’d like to hear about the wildlife project from the Prince himself, here he is, a few years back, talking about his time in Malawi:

[source:metro]