Apeldoorn, Netherlands
Hundreds of people showed up at the royal palace Het Loo this week to bid on elephant figurines from the late Prince Bernhard’s famous collection. The prince, father of the current Queen Beatrix, was one of the founders of the Worldwide Fund for Nature. He became a fervent supporter of elephant conservation as a young man on safari, when an elephant that kept visiting his tent eventually reached out its trunk to his hand. Sotheby’s estimated the value of the 1,000-plus statuettes to be around $17,000, but the auction raised more than $475,000 for the environmental charity. “Is this out of affection for the late prince, the mystique of the Royal House, or love of elephants?” Amsterdam’s De Volkskrant asked.
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