Elephants find new home in Australia

Photo: Elephants find new home in Australia

Each in their separate cages, the pachyderms will be loaded onto a cargo plane late Monday and fly to their temporary home in Australia's Cocos islands where they will be quarantined for three months, the AP reports.

The transfer has been held up for more than a year as animal rights groups in both countries fought to have the move scuttled over concerns for the elephants' welfare. They claim the animals - who will be part of a captive breeding program - will suffer in the confines of the zoos and that the program won't help conserve the species.

An Australian court in December cleared the way for the move to Sydney in New South Wales and Melbourne Zoo in the southern state of Victoria as long as the zoos met certain conditions guaranteeing the elephants' welfare.

Taronga Zoo has spent 40 million Australian dollars (US$30 million; Ђ25 million) on a new enclosure complete with hot and cold bathing areas, an elephant exercise area, waterfalls and ponds and specially designed "sleeping mounds" for the pachyderms.

But the measures didn't go far enough for Thai and Australian animal rights groups who argued that the animals should be allowed to remain in the wild. The elephants have been kept for a year and a half in quarantine in Thailand while the dispute played out.