Thought Question: If you had to move to a completely new place, what would make you feel comfortable and excited about your new home? The task of moving nine elephants from Australia’s Melbourne Zoo to a new sanctuary 25 miles away must have seemed difficult. But the animals' reaction to seeing their new home made it all worth it. “The behaviors that we saw that indicated to us that they felt really comfortable ... were lots of ear flapping, trunk touching, lots of vocalizations,” Erin Gardiner told The Associated Press (AP). “So, roaring, trumpeting, tweaks and squeaks … I just couldn’t believe how well they traveled.” Gardiner is the elephants' caretaker. The big move happened earlier this month. Zookeepers had noticed two years ago that the nine massive mammals seemed cramped at the zoo. So they began preparing them to move to a bigger home. First, they had to train the elephants to enter the huge, air-conditioned truck trailers that would take them to the Werribee Open Range Zoo. “Without that training and comfort, I think it would have been really hard to do it safely,” Bonnie McMeekin told the AP. She is a veterinarian that helped with the move. The herd is made up of one adult male, five adult females, and three calves. Together, they weigh nearly 25 tons. At the Melbourne Zoo, they lived in a 5-acre enclosure. Now they’re flexing their trunks in a 52-acre paddock. It has two 11-foot-deep swimming pools. It contains mud wallows, elephant barns, and a soft, sandy patch for sleeping. The new space cost $55 million to build. It opens to the public this week. Now that’s something to trumpet about. Photo of elephants from Unsplash courtesy of paweldotio.
