Taronga Zoo's elephants pack their trunks and say goodbye to Sydney as new life in SA awaits

Australia Broadcast Center

23-04-2025

Taronga Zoo's last elephants have packed their trunks and are ready for a mammoth move.
It's early morning, and before the zoo gates open to throngs of school holiday visitors, keepers are busy helping Asian elephant Tang Mo get used to the crate that she'll soon be travelling more than 20 hours in to her new home in South Australia.
She ambles confidently into its narrow confines and happily scoops up trunkfuls of hay.
Asian elephant Tang Mo's new home will be in South Australia.
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ABC News: Greg Bigelow
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With gentle words of encouragement from her keepers, she flips up one giant foot as if for a pedicure, so a safety belt wrapped around her ankle can be attached to the container.
The other foot soon follows, and she is rewarded with more snacks tossed into her open mouth by the keepers.
"Snacks are the way to win an elephant's heart," senior elephant keeper Johny Wade said.
"They're very much the key to building a lasting relationship with the elephants," Mr Wade said.
En route to South Australia
By the end of April, Tang Mo and her companion Pak Boon will be settling in to a new life with a new herd of elephants at the Monarto safari park on the Malee Plains, about an hour's drive east of Adelaide.
Mr Wade said the elephants would be accompanied by two support teams who would attend to their every need, and the safety belts would help keep the animals safe during the trip.
"It basically allows them to brace themselves on the journey, a bit like the handle you have on the bus when standing up," Mr Wade said.
"On the journey we will be checking them regularly, making sure they're doing well."
Senior elephant keeper Johny Wade provides snacks and more for the elephants on the move.
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ABC News: Greg Bigelow
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The CEO of the Taronga Conservation Society Cameron Kerr, said the elephants had been a "beloved" part of the zoo for many years, but the move was in their best interests.
"We've always been looking for another big site where we can bring elephants from different groups together to form a new community, because they are very complex social animals,"
he said.
"They are dearly loved by all our teams and so many of our visitors and zoo friends as well, so it's very sad to see them go. But there's two of them here and we feel there needs to be a bigger social group than that."
Taronga Conservation Society CEO Cameron Kerr said the elephants would benefit from a larger social group.
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ABC News: Greg Bigelow
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Taronga's first elephant Jessie, arrived in 1916 and transporting the giant creatures has always been a feat of epic proportions.
In September 1916, Jessie, who had been living in the Zoological Gardens at Moore Park, was walked through the main streets of Sydney and through the Domain in the early hours of the morning on a mission to the harbour.
Asian elephant Jessie with a Taronga elephant keeper in an undated photo from the late 1910s.
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Supplied: Taronga Zoo
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Almost two decades before the Harbour Bridge opened, she crossed the water on a ferry then walked up Taronga's steep hill to her new enclosure — the Elephant Temple which was built in the style of an Indian house of worship.
Today the heritage-listed building serves as a reminder of a very different era where two elephants were chained up in a tiny, dark cavern side by side and brought out for elephant rides and other forms of entertainment.
Images from the 1930s show a crane being used to unload another elephant bound for Taronga, from a steamboat on the harbour.
Asian Elephant Juanita (or Jill) who arrived at Taronga in November 1935 from Rangoon (Yangoon).
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Supplied: Taronga Zoo
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While their trip to South Australia will be a very long road trip, Mr Kerr said Tang Mo and Pak Boon had previously gained a reputation as jet-setters, having flown in from Thailand in 2006.
"Just to give you an indication of how smart these elephants are, after the very first take off and landing on Cocos Keeling Island, when they took off again when they heard the engines start up they knew to lean forward — that's incredible."
For all those who have been involved in their care, farewelling the zoo's final pair of elephants will be an emotional moment.
"We are part of their family, they're part of our family — we call us one big dysfunctional herd of humans and elephants," Mr Wade said.
"So it is going to be bittersweet; we are going to miss them when they go. But ultimately their welfare and their future is key to what we are doing."
Photo shows
A young elephant
It took five days for a team to transport nine Asian elephants across Melbourne to a new home in Werribee.
Mr Wade said the elephants' different personalities meant keepers had to use quite different approaches to prepare them for the journey.
"They are very much chalk and cheese when it comes to personality; one is very food motivated, very stubborn, very strong-willed. The other one is very much about the relationship, she a bit airy-fairy, soft in nature."
Once the elephants have moved, their current habitat at the zoo will get some new tenants — who will have big shoes to fill.
Mr Kerr said Hari, the one-horned rhino who was born at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo in 2021, would soon take up residence along with some water buffalo.
"We are calling this the great migration, so it's very exciting. We are bringing down Indian rhino, greater one-horned rhinos, " he said.
"They are the most wonderful creatures — they're enormous rhinos, they've got the big wrinkly skin and they're gentle giants."