Marcel Peters has worked with animals for decades. He is an accomplished elephant expert and is HSH Princess Stephanie of Monaco’s right-hand man in caring for her rescued elephant Baby, and Nepal, who recently passed away.

Animal advocate Kat Pirelli-Zucchetta caught up with Marcel at the Princess’ compound above Monaco, and discovered the fascinating story of how two zoo animals, destined for death, became the luckiest elephants alive.

Fonbonne majestically sits at the top of a mountain overlooking Monaco. This beautiful spring day, Marcel and his team of trainers come to greet me, accompanied by their seven show quality Leonberger dogs, who also happen to call Fonbonne home. They kindly take me on a tour of the property and introduce me to all of the other lovely animals: goats, chickens and a very animated Ponkey (½ pony and ½ donkey). Then, I meet Baby, a rescue elephant and the reason why everyone is here, being lovingly fed her favourite fruit by Princess Stephanie.

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Publisher’s note: Monaco Life is 100% committed to promoting and supporting sustainability in all its guises, and for us that includes both planetary and personal sustainability. Today, we are launching the first in our series highlighting species preservation and we are very excited to have world renowned animal advocate Kat Pirelli-Zucchetta as our contributing expert. We hope you enjoy these articles, let’s all do what we can to protect the animal kingdom. Eric Brundage, Publisher Monaco Life.