Stephanie of Monaco has announced the death of the last elephant, named Baby, who remained under her care at her French farm in Fontbonne. “Goodbye Baby… Baby and Nepal now rest in peace”, she has revealed on her Facebook. It was in 2013 when the sister of Albert II of Monaco gave shelter to two specimens of pachyderms, Baby and Nepal, which came from the Tête d’Or park, in Lyon. They would have been threatened at the zoo on suspicion of tuberculosis and euthanasia had been scheduled for fear of more infections, but she saved them.
The princess fought alongside the actress Brigitte Bardot to keep these two elephants alive after the death of another specimen from the same zoo due to tuberculosis that was suspected of having infected Baby and Nepal. After a long campaign of activism, the princess was finally able to welcome them. Further analysis later showed that the animals were no longer infected with the disease.
The animals were transferred to the Grimaldi family ranch, Roc Agel, on the Côte d’Azur, where his father, Prince Rainier, had already kept species of all kinds several decades before. Estefanía’s care for these elephants went beyond giving them a new home, because, as she said, she exercised with them daily, brushed them, fed them and kept them company. The other specimen, Nepal, died on April 29, 2018 due to chronic renal failure.
“I have inherited a taste for the circus and for elephants from my father. From a very young age, he followed the main European circuses and knew all the families related to the sector. So I have grown up with it, accompanying him everywhere”, assured. “I don’t know if anyone can understand what this brings me. Serenity, fullness. It is unconditional love, not calculated, spontaneous, pure,” he said on another occasion.
Although members of the royal families do not usually comment on politics, Estefanía de Mónaco broke this rule to talk about the French Government’s ban on using wild animals in circuses and parks: “Circus animals are members of the family and have contact with humans. They are not trained or mistreated, they are simply loved, fed and pampered.” “Circus people don’t go on vacation because they watch over their animals 24 hours a day,” she added.
Over the years, Estefanía has earned the nickname of the rebel princess, although she rejects that title. Already a mother of three children, the princess fell in love with the elephant trainer Franco Knie in 2000. With her children still young, she joined the circus and with it the nomadic life. Her relationship with Knie did not last and after a few years she secretly married the acrobat Adans Peres, ten years her junior and whom she separated from her in nine months. Since then she has not known any love relationship. Last April she became a grandmother for the first time.
