Elephants going to a new trunk line

Auckland Zoo has taken the “heartbreaking decision” to rehome its two female elephants to an overseas zoo.

Burma and Anjalee have been at the zoo since it began trying to build a “sustainable elephant family herd”.

However, challenges beyond the zoo’s control in the past five years mean they need to move on, Auckland Zoo director Kevin Buley says.

“I think we’ve all heard the phrase that ‘the right decision is often the hardest one to make’ . . . but I’ve never really felt it to the extent that I do today. We are all absolutely gutted that Burma and Anjalee will be leaving us, as we have worked so hard to establish an elephant family for them here in New Zealand. However, we know that, for their long-term wellbeing, we now need to put our own feelings aside and do the right thing by them both.”

An additional female elephant had been expected from Sri Lanka’s Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage shortly after Anjalee arrived in 2015 but that hadn’t progressed. Burma arrived at the zoo in 1990.

Five artificial insemination attempts, working with the world’s leading reproductive experts, were made with Anjalee between 2017 and 2019, however none was successful.

“Now, a number of insurmountable challenges mean that no further AI attempts are currently possible here in New Zealand.

“Now aged 14, she needs to get pregnant soon to avoid the long-term reproductive health issues that can face female elephants if they don’t breed.

“Having exhausted all current possibilities to breed her here at Auckland Zoo, we will now work to

We now need to put our own feelings aside and do the right thing by them both. Kevin Buley

move her to another accredited zoo programme where she can live in a multi-generational family herd.

“There she will be able to mate naturally with a bull elephant and have the best possible chance of eventually having her own elephant calf,” Buley said.

Exactly where she will go is as yet unknown. The zoo is working with its international zoo colleagues to ensure it finds the “best possible home overseas”.

Photos / Grace Watson, Dean Purcell Elephants Anjalee (left) and Burma cool off with a dust bath at Auckland Zoo. Below: Zoo director Kevin Buley yesterday informed his staff that the zoo will no longer be able to keep the elephants.