Auckland Zoo announces decision to rehome elephants Burma and Anjalee

Wednesday, 25 November 2020

Auckland Zoo director Kevin Buley explains the elephants will be moved overseas after all options were exhausted to develop a herd at the zoo. (First published in November 2020)

Auckland Zoo has announced it will be rehoming its two female elephants.

The Asian elephants, Burma and Anjalee, will be moved to a new home to give them the “family herd” they need for their long-term wellbeing, the zoo said on Wednesday.

Zoo director Kevin Buley said it has been committed to building a sustainable elephant herd since 2011 – but challenges over the past five years have made that difficult.

He’d been in zoos for over 25 years and it was by far the most difficult animal decision he’d ever had to make, Buley said.

Another Sri Lankan elephant, Nandi, was expected to join Burma and Anjalee about five years ago but that has not happened.

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Nandi, then a 6-year-old female elephant from Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka, was gifted to New Zealand by the country's president Maithripala Sirisena in February 2016.

Her arrival at Auckland Zoo was stopped in 2017 following protests from animal rights activists and a hearing in the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal.

Around the same time, Auckland Council's finance and performance committee approved the elephant's $1.6 million relocation costs to the city.

Nandi remains living at the elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka and Auckland Zoo said it had informed officials it is discontinuing the relocation programme.

Buley said there have also been five attempts of artificial insemination made between 2017 and 2019 with Anjalee, but none have been successful.

“A number of insurmountable challenges mean that no further attempts are currently possible here in New Zealand.”

Now aged 14, Anjalee needs to get pregnant soon to avoid any long-term reproductive health issues female elephants can face if they do not breed.

“Having exhausted all current possibilities to breed her here at Auckland Zoo, we will now work to move her to another accredited zoo programme where she can live in a multi-generational family herd,” Buley said.

Moving elephants overseas will be a challenge, he said, but with a good level of planning and some team work with the receiving organisation, they will settle in and have comfortable, happy lives.

“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 Auckland Zoo staff were heartbroken and “absolutely gutted” about the decision that had been made.

He said the team is proud of the elephant programme and the “happy lives” Burma and Anjalee had at Auckland Zoo.

“Our elephant team is truly exceptional in the level of skill, dedication, and care that they provide, which is why this decision has been so much more difficult to take.

“Our two elephants are such an important part of our zoo whānau and we know how much they also mean to the millions of people that have found a connection with them and followed their lives with us over recent years.”

The keepers desperately wanted to see a future for them here as part of a herd – and the realisation that they are not able to achieve that here has been devastating for them, Buley said.

Buley said team members know for the well-being of the elephants, they need to put their own feelings aside and do the right thing by them.