The ‘Help us home Elephants’ fundraising campaign was announced on August 3 and was expected to run through September and October.

But the zoo surpassed its $2 million target with more than 4000 donations – including one private donor giving $1 million to the cause.

Zoos SA chief executive Elaine Bensted said the campaign was launched to bring elephants from zoos in Perth and Auckland to found a herd at a to-be-built habitat at Monarto.

“This project has been propelled by the community’s desire to see the best welfare outcome for the elephants and to get them to South Australia,” she said.

“I would like to thank every single person who has donated and helped us so far. I can’t wait for you to see these three beautiful animals at Monarto Safari Park in 2024/25.”

The space at Monarto will be approximately 14 hectares – equal to about nine Adelaide Ovals – and more elephants are slated to join the herd once the initial three are settled.

Permai. Photo: Alex Cearns

Zoos SA said Burma – a 40-year-old female elephant from Auckland Zoo – is already trained to travel, while 33-year-old female Permai and ‘bull’ elephant Putra Mas (also 33) from Perth Zoo will soon begin their crate training to get them ready for the trip to Monarto.

The ‘Run Wild’ challenge where fundraisers will run, walk or wheelchair to raise money for the elephants will still go ahead on October 21.

“While we’ve reached our original goal, I want to assure everyone that all funds raised over this amount will still go to the elephants’ project,” Bensted said.

“Any extra money raised now will help Zoos SA to reduce its financing costs for the project and allow us to ensure our efforts remain focussed on the conservation work we undertake … any debt that we can reduce only speeds up the process of paying it off and allowing us to get back to our work to save species from extinction.”

According to Zoos SA, there are about 52,000 Asian elephants left in the wild with the population dropping by 50 per cent over the last three generations. The trio joining Monarto will be ‘ambassador animals’ and part of a project to help bring awareness to the endangered species.

Within Australia, the Asian Elephant regional breeding program has proved successful with eight calves born since 2000, and three calves born in the last 12 months. The new herd in SA will make room for more animals to be born into safe habitats with socially appropriate herd structures.

Participants can join the Run Wild challenge at runwild.monartosafari.com.au.