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UK's Queen Elizabeth and Husband Philip Celebrate 73rd Wedding Anniversary

Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh look at their homemade wedding anniversary card, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Britain November 17, 2020. (Reuters)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh look at their homemade wedding anniversary card, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Britain November 17, 2020. (Reuters)
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UK's Queen Elizabeth and Husband Philip Celebrate 73rd Wedding Anniversary

Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh look at their homemade wedding anniversary card, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Britain November 17, 2020. (Reuters)
Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh look at their homemade wedding anniversary card, at Windsor Castle, Windsor, Britain November 17, 2020. (Reuters)

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary on Friday, an occasion they were unable to share with their family during England’s current coronavirus lockdown.

Elizabeth, 94, and Philip, 99, married in London’s Westminster Abbey on Nov. 20, 1947, just two years after the end of World War Two.

“Thank you to everyone for your kind wishes on the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s 73rd Wedding Anniversary,” Buckingham Palace said on Twitter.

To mark the occasion, the palace released a photograph of a smiling monarch and her husband looking at a card made by her great-grandchildren Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, alongside other cards and letters from well-wishers.

The picture was taken at Windsor Castle, the queen’s home west of London where the couple are staying during the lockdown.

In a nod to their early days of marriage, Elizabeth was wearing a chrysanthemum brooch, made of sapphires and diamonds, that she wore for pictures taken at Broadlands in southern England during the first part of their honeymoon.

The couple first met when they attended the wedding of Philip’s cousin, Princess Marina of Greece, to Elizabeth’s uncle, the Duke of Kent, in 1934.

Philip gained the attention of his future wife when the then-13-year-old princess made a visit with her parents to Britain’s Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in southwest England where he was a cadet.

While royal watchers say Elizabeth and Philip have had their ups and downs, they have avoided the travails of three of their four children whose marriages have ended in divorce, most notably Charles’s ill-fated union with his late first wife Princess Diana.

“The main lesson that we have learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage,” Philip said in a speech on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1997.

“It may not be quite so important when things are going well, but it is absolutely vital when things get difficult - you can take it from me that the queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

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More Than 100 Vultures Die in a Mass Poisoning in South Africa’s Flagship National Park 

A pair of Cape vultures is seen in their enclosure at the Vulture Program at Boekenhoutkloof near Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2011. (AP)
A pair of Cape vultures is seen in their enclosure at the Vulture Program at Boekenhoutkloof near Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2011. (AP)
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More Than 100 Vultures Die in a Mass Poisoning in South Africa’s Flagship National Park 

A pair of Cape vultures is seen in their enclosure at the Vulture Program at Boekenhoutkloof near Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2011. (AP)
A pair of Cape vultures is seen in their enclosure at the Vulture Program at Boekenhoutkloof near Hartbeespoort Dam, South Africa, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2011. (AP)

At least 123 vultures died in South Africa's flagship national park after eating the carcass of an elephant that was poisoned by poachers with agricultural pesticides, park authorities and an animal conservation group said Thursday.

Another 83 vultures that were rescued from the site and transported for treatment by helicopter or a special vulture ambulance were recovering.

The mass poisoning was one of the worst seen in the famous Kruger National Park in northern South Africa, said SANParks, the national parks agency.

Vultures are key to wildlife ecosystems because of the clean up work they do feeding on the carcasses of dead animals. But that also makes them especially vulnerable to poisoning by poachers, either intentionally or as a result of the killing of other animals. Hundreds of vultures typically feed on a carcass.

The elephant had been poisoned by poachers in a remote part of the huge park to harvest its body parts for the illegal wildlife trade, SANParks and the Endangered Wildlife Trust said.

Many vulture species are endangered in Africa because of poisoning and other threats to them. The affected birds in Kruger included Cape vultures, endangered lappet-faced vultures and critically-endangered white-backed and hooded vultures.

“This horrific incident is part of a broader crisis unfolding across southern Africa: the escalating use of poisons in wildlife poaching,” SANParks and the Endangered Wildlife Trust said in their joint statement. “Poachers increasingly use agricultural toxins to target high-value species.”

The Kruger National Park covers approximately 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) and is nearly twice the size of small countries like Jamaica and Qatar.

Rangers say they face a daily battle to guard species like rhinos, elephants and lions from poachers.

Vulture conservation organization Vulpro, which was not involved in the rescue, said the poisoning came at the start of the breeding season and many other birds that weren't found at the site could still be affected.