It's a great migration and the end of an era at Taronga. More than a century after the first elephants arrived at the zoo, it's preparing to say goodbye to its last remaining pair. Asian elephants Tang Mo and Pak Boon will soon be headed for the Monarto Safari Park in South Australia, on what will be quite a journey.
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00:00Taronga's last elephants have packed their trunks and are getting ready for a mammoth move.
00:08So we are going to miss them, it's going to be a bittersweet moment when they go,
00:11but ultimately their welfare and their future is the key to what we're doing.
00:14Tang Mo is practising getting comfortable with the crate she'll travel in for more than 20 hours to get to her new home.
00:21So it's click-clack front and back for this wide load.
00:25That basically allows them to brace themselves on the journey,
00:27a bit like the handle that you have on the bus when you're standing up.
00:29And plenty of snacks for the road for her and her travel buddy Pak Boone.
00:34Snacks are a way to win an elephant's heart.
00:37They're very much the key to building a lasting relationship with the elephants.
00:41Elephants have been drawing crowds at Taronga since the zoo first opened in 1916
00:46and moving them has always been a feat of epic proportions.
00:50They were once brought there for entertainment and used to be kept in these dark cramped quarters.
00:56But it's now their welfare driving the move to a new 12 hectare elephant habitat where they'll be able to run with a herd on the Mallee Plains.
01:04We've always been looking for another big site where we can bring elephants from different groups together to form a new community.
01:12Because they're very complex social animals.
01:15While great effort is going into making sure the elephants are as comfortable as possible for their journey,
01:20they're actually already kind of seasoned travellers.
01:22They flew by plane to get here from Thailand in 2006 with a tropical stopover in the Cocos Keeling Islands for quarantine.
01:30And the elephants' old digs at Taronga won't go empty.
01:33We're calling this the Great Migration, so it's very exciting.
01:36We're bringing down Indian rhinos, greater one-horned rhino.
01:40They are the most wonderful creatures.
01:43But the new tenants will certainly have big shoes to fill.
01:47They're the most wonderful people.
01:48They're the most wonderful people.
01:50They're the most wonderful people.