Prince William receives rare honour that no other royal has - and it celebrates his most important cause
Prince William’s unexpected friendship with Robert Irwin has led to him receiving this unique honour
Prince William has been described as a real "big boy" and a "modern day dinosaur" - but, fear not, we aren’t talking about the Prince of Wales.
As it turns out, there’s a new Prince William who lives in one of the Commonwealth countries, and he’s a 12 foot 6 inch saltwater crocodile named in honour of the future King. The, let’s say, unique honour was bestowed upon Prince William by one of his new friends, famous conservationist Robert Irwin.
Robert has formed an unexpected friendship with William, and in honour of the prince’s work with his Earthshot Prize, and the son of the late Steve Irwin has celebrated this friendship and their shared love of environmentalism by naming a huge crocodile at the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve in Australia after him.
Introducing the regally named crocodile on his social media page, Robert said, "This is all for the conservation of crocodiles and over the years we have caught 300 crocs in this ground-breaking study.
"I’m very proud to say that this big boy right here is the 300th crocodile that we have caught. This is a really exciting milestone, and in gratitude and recognition for the incredible conservation work from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, we wanted to name this extremely special modern-day dinosaur, this amazing animal, after His Royal Highness.
"So meet Prince William. Here he is."
As part of the reserve’s work, William the crocodile will be tracked for the next decade, providing data about what he eats, how long he can dive and how climate change affects his body temperature.
The future king and the 22-year-old conservationist have struck up the unlikeliest of friendships ever since Robert became an ambassador for William’s Earthshot Prize, which was launched in 2020 and awards five winners a £1 million grant each to scale their work towards goals of environmental and conservation importance.
Earlier in the year, after joining William riding London’s 3000th electric bus as part of London Climate Action Week, Robert appeared on ITV's This Morning where he spoke about the "privilege" of befriending the prince.
Describing him as one of the “greatest environmentalists that we have on the planet”, Robert revealed more about how William checks in.
"This is a perfect example of what he's like, right?" Robert responded, "I was doing Dancing with the Stars in America, bringing the conservation mission to a very different audience. He FaceTimed me in rehearsals with my dance partner just to wish me well on all the dancing."
He added, "He is just a down to Earth human being and someone who knows the importance of conservation reaching different audiences."
