Saying goodbye to NZ’s last elephant

After about two and a half years of planning and waiting, New Zealand’s last elephant has moved to her new home at Monarto Safari Park in South Australia.
Burma and her “human herd”, that is, her keepers, arrived last week, and she’s settling in well, according to Auckland Zoo’s Andrew Coers.
“Something that we’re noticing here at the moment is that she’s very much on alert with all the different noises because obviously [at Auckland Zoo] you’ve got all the white noise of all the different city noises that you have, whereas here it’s so quiet that you get all these unusual animal noises or vehicles noises that she’s like ‘what’s that over there, what’s this’ and so were having to support her through those,” he says.
“But she’s made leaps and bounds.”
The 42-year-old Asian elephant will be in a quarantine area with a barn and a yard until mid-December. She’s gone to join a herd – but she’s the first one there.
“It’s to Burma’s benefit in a roundabout way because being first there she gets to get familiar with the property and the site.”
The next elephant to arrive will be Permai, from Perth, then two more will arrive from Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Later a male elephant, again from Perth, will join the herd as well.
So what happens if they don’t get along?
“We’ve got four habitats within the precinct of elephants here so there’s enough space to shift and juggle elephants if they don’t get on,” says Coers.
But it’s not a scenario he’s worried about, as they’ve all been around other elephants before. He says the introduction process will include watching the elephants for the right signs that they’re ready to meet. As far as Burma is concerned, Coers is confident she’ll do just fine.
“She’s such a gentle elephant. I, at this stage, touch wood, have no reservations about her introductions with the other cows.
“What we’d like to see is her form a relationship with Permai and then that will help, they’ll be able to support each other.”
The keepers will watch for signs like when the elephants “link trunks, touch each other, just sniff each other, all that sort of stuff are all good signs, and they’ll start rumbling, and squeaking, and carrying on.”
Coers is part of a team of five who joined Burma on her trip. He and his wife and colleague, Corryn Coers, have both known Burma for about 25 years, and the other trainers, Laurel Sandy and Odin Neil, for upwards of 15 years.
“We’ve all spent that time and I don’t know what we’d do without her, which is why we’re here.”
For three of them, a return date is up in the air.
“We’re just trying to suss that out at the moment, we just want to make sure that we’re here to support Burma with the introduction of the other elephants coming and then we’ll just kind of make some decision based from all of that really,” he says.
While Coers is happy to see Burma in a new home with other elephants, the relocation is bittersweet.
“I wanted New Zealanders to have the opportunity to be in the presence of elephants… it’s not right keeping an elephant on its own and it’s not right keeping one or two. They should be socialised with a bunch of cows.
“I’m still sad about her leaving New Zealand and us not being able to kind of achieve what we wanted to achieve in New Zealand.”
But on Burma’s drive from the Adelaide airport to Monarto Safari Park, South Australians lined the road to get a glimpse of her.
“To have that reception was really special. I’ve got no doubt in my mind that the community is going to embrace her and they showed that on her arrival and I’m really grateful for that.”
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