The end of the Asian Elephant era at Taronga Zoo Sydney is a foot, with Taronga announcing the mammoth move of Asian Elephants Tang Mo and Pak Boon to South Australia is set for late March 2025. Following the elephants’ move, works will commence for a new mixed species habitat for a Greater One-horned Rhinoceros and Water Buffalo. 
   
In April 2024 and after more than a century of history, Taronga announced plans for the departure of Asian Elephants from Taronga Zoo Sydney. This decision was made with best animal welfare practices in mind, as the rare opportunity presented to form a new social herd with three other elephants from Auckland Zoo and Perth Zoo at Monarto Safari Park in South Australia.  

The departure of Tang Mo and Pak Boon in late March allows the four females in the new herd to settle and form bonds before bull Putra Mas from Perth Zoo is introduced to the herd after his seasonal musth (hormonal change).   

The logistics of moving an elephant is a mammoth task and includes asking them to walk into a transport crate and to use a seatbelt! 

Taronga Zoo Exotics Manager Mandy Everett said, “the goal of training is to give Tang Mo and Pak Boon the choice to voluntarily participate in daily crate and seatbelt sessions, which build positive associations to the transport crate and their safety leg bands ahead of the March move.”  
 

“The daily sessions give Tang Mo and Pak Boon the option to explore, test, enter and exit their transport crate at their own pace, and is ultimately conditioning them to the safe and positive space that they will travel in.  

“Pak Boon and Tang Mo voluntarily present their feet for safety leg bands to be comfortably fit, which are much like a seatbelt or handle that you hold when standing on a bus or train. It’s an important safety and comfort measure to help in the journey when the transport truck brakes, accelerates, or turns”, explained Mandy.  

In the coming months, Taronga Zoo Sydney will ensure the community has the opportunity to say their farewells to the elephants and to thank the dedicated keepers who have cared for them for almost two decades.    

Visitors to the harbour-side zoo may even catch a training session for themselves, as the keepers change the timings and durations of the sessions, best preparing the elephants for a host of scenarios ahead of moving day.  

Guests can still see Asian Elephants and our unwavering commitment to the conservation of this species at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, with the birth of a calf expected in late 2025 to add to the multi-generation breeding herd based in Dubbo.