Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace: Camilla Steps Up

This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
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Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace: Camilla Steps Up

This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)
This photo taken in May 2017 shows Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in Clarence House, London. (Mario Testino via Clarence House via AP)

A gradual changing of the guard is happening at the head of Britain's royal family, as Queen Elizabeth II steps back from public engagements due to her advanced age and health.

The 95-year-old monarch's eldest son and heir, Charles, Prince of Wales, has been shouldering more of the burden of official duties for several years, including overseas.

But his wife, Camilla, is increasingly stepping into the fray, both online during coronavirus pandemic restrictions in the past year and now in person, after curbs were lifted.

Joining the couple at the royal vanguard are Charles' eldest son from his first marriage to Princess Diana, William, and his wife, Kate.

As a result, they have earned a greater share of the media coverage that would previously have gone to the monarch, who has been advised to rest by doctors.

Their presence at events -- from the world premiere of the latest James Bond film to meeting world leaders at the G7 and UN climate summits -- is a clear sign of change to come.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, told AFP their visibility "will accelerate within the fullness of time".

"But a lot of people are now familiar with Camilla and are getting to know her," he added.

- Rehabilitation -
Camilla, 74, also known as the Duchess of Cornwall, will become consort when Charles, 72, takes the throne. William, 39, will move up the line of succession to heir apparent.

Only a few years ago, a different "Fab Four" were seen as the future of Britain's most famous family: William and Kate along with his younger brother Harry and his wife Meghan.

But plans changed dramatically last year when Harry and Meghan moved to the United States, from where they have criticized the family and even accused it of racism.

The rise of Camilla -- once a hate-figure for being "the other woman" in Charles and Diana's marriage -- has been remarkable.

"Her position has certainly evolved and there's been a huge and very long process of rehabilitation since... she was described as this rottweiler at the time of Diana," royal historian Anna Whitelock told the Daily Express.

Camilla, like other royals, was forced into a more public role by the coronavirus pandemic, when the world moved online.

But she has taken on the role with aplomb and won fans, even if in the eyes of some she can never be forgiven for her role in the collapse of Charles and Diana's marriage.

"There are lots of Camilla supporters out there," said Little.

"The sense is she's coping with it very well. She's been a member of the royal family for 16 years, so she's had quite a bit of experience of high-profile things...

"She's become very proficient at it."

Since the death of the Queen's husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, in April, Camilla has been seen -- and heard -- more frequently at official royal engagements and charity events.

This week she accompanied Charles -- a longstanding environmentalist -- to the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow, to urge world leaders to stop runaway climate change.

Last month she and Charles, who married in 2005, supported the Queen at the official opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh and the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

She was also present as the monarch undertook her first ceremonial engagement since her husband's death -- the State Opening of Parliament in May.

In the coming weeks, the couple embark on the first royal overseas tour since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, visiting Egypt, which will host COP27, and Jordan.

- Bigger role? -
Camilla's appearances elsewhere reflect her variety of interests, from promoting literacy via her popular Instagram book club to championing rescue animals.

She gave a well-received speech and backing to a campaign tackling violence against women, dovetailing with support given by Kate to the issue earlier this year.

Camilla has also made several television and radio appearances, speaking about her mother's battle with osteoporosis and her love of gardening and horse breeding.

Reports said she could soon take on a bigger role as one of the "counsellors of state", a group of senior royals appointed to step in if the Queen cannot perform her official duties.

Speculation has mounted because the other counsellors alongside Charles and William -- Prince Andrew and Harry -- are no longer serving royals.

"The Queen may look to add the Duchess of Cornwall, who would become a counsellor of state when Charles is king anyway," constitutional expert Craig Prescott from Bangor University told the Mail on Sunday.



Killer Whales Spotted Grooming Each Other with Seaweed

This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
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Killer Whales Spotted Grooming Each Other with Seaweed

This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)
This handout frame grab taken from video footage provided by whale rescue group Organization for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA) on June 9, 2025 shows a distressed humpback whale tangled in a rope swimming south of Sydney Harbour. (Photo by Handout and Clay Sweetman / ORRCA / AFP)

Killer whales have been caught on video breaking off pieces of seaweed to rub and groom each other, scientists announced Monday, in what they said is the first evidence of marine mammals making their own tools.

Humans are far from being the only member of the animal kingdom that has mastered using tools. Chimpanzees fashion sticks to fish for termites, crows create hooked twigs to catch grubs and elephants swat flies with branches.

Tool-use in the world's difficult-to-study oceans is rarer, however sea otters are known to smash open shellfish with rocks, while octopuses can make mobile homes out of coconut shells.

A study published in the journal Current Biology describes a new example of tool use by a critically endangered population of orcas., AFP reported.

Scientists have been monitoring the southern resident killer whales in the Salish Sea, between Canada's British Columbia and the US state of Washington, for more than 50 years.

Rachel John, a Masters student at Exeter University in the UK, told a press conference that she first noticed "something kind of weird" going on while watching drone camera footage last year.

The researchers went back over old footage and were surprised to find this behavior is quite common, documenting 30 examples over eight days.

One whale would use its teeth to break off a piece of bull kelp, which is strong but flexible like a garden hose.

It would then put the kelp between its body and the body of another whale, and they would rub it between them for several minutes.

The pair forms an "S" shape to keep the seaweed positioned between their bodies as they roll around.

Whales are already known to frolic through seaweed in a practice called "kelping".

They are thought to do this partly for fun, partly to use the seaweed to scrub their bodies to remove dead skin.

The international team of researchers called the new behavior "allokelping," which means kelping with another whale.

They found that killer whales with more dead skin were more likely to engage in the activity, cautioning that it was a small sample size.

Whales also tended to pair up with family members or others of a similar age, suggesting the activity has a social element.

The scientists said it was the first known example of a marine mammal manufacturing a tool.

Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University not involved in the study, praised the research but said it "went a bit too far" in some of its claims.

Bottlenose dolphins that use marine sponges to trawl for prey could also be considered to be manufacturing tools, she told AFP.

And it could be argued that other whales known to use nets of bubbles or plumes of mud to hunt represent tool-use benefitting multiple individuals, another first claimed in the paper, Mann said.

Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research and the study's lead author, said it appeared to be just the latest example of socially learned behavior among animals that could be considered "culture".

But the number of southern resident killer whales has dwindled to just 73, meaning we could soon lose this unique cultural tradition, he warned.

"If they disappear, we're never getting any of that back," he said.

The whales mainly eat Chinook salmon, whose numbers have plummeted due to overfishing, climate change, habitat destruction and other forms of human interference.

The orcas and salmon are not alone -- undersea kelp forests have also been devastated as ocean temperatures rise.

Unless something changes, the outlook for southern resident killer whales is "very bleak," Weiss warned.