Brian Rudman: Two new elephants too big to keep secret

One of Auckland Zoo's elephant keepers, Andrew Coers, spends some time with Burma, the zoo's remaining elephant. Photo / Janna Dixon

Why Auckland Zoo wants to keep secret an offer of two orphan baby elephants is a mystery. Anyway, it had no sooner confided the confidential news to a workshop of Auckland councillors via individually addressed sealed envelopes, than up it popped on Twitter.

One councillor got his envelope through the mail, it had no "Secret" stamp on it, and as is his way, he sought advice from his online friends. Members of the media included.

The cutesy animal deal comes with a price tag of $3.2 million. Councillors I spoke to are not certain whether that is just for the travel costs, or includes housing costs once the pair arrive. More will be revealed at next week's full council meeting when they'll be asked to vote on it.

In its favour, it is a lot less costly than the $13.2 million project inherited from the old Auckland City Council. This involved a herd of 10 elephants and a new enclosure, hijacked from the adjacent Western Springs Reserve.

The two youngsters, one of each sex, will, councillors were told, be good company for lonely 28-year-old spinster Burma, who has been without elephant companionship since the death of 40-year-old Kashin in August 2009.

Whether Burma will dust down the welcome carpet is by no means certain. There are signs she might have grown quite fond of the solo life and the human spoiling that goes with it. She's already given the bum's rush to the last "companion" the zoo match-makers produced to try to keep her happy.

This year, they fixed her up with a horse - an 11-year-old mare, Cherry.

"Cherry has a fantastic temperament and has many qualities that make her a great match for Burma," cooed zoo director Jonathan Wilcken a few weeks after the introductions took place. Burma was "growing curious" about her new paddock mate, and Cherry had started "vocalising" in return.

But it wasn't to be. Maybe it was Cherry's alien language that scared Burma off. Or her lack of a trunk. The zoo website's official divorce notice didn't go into the intimate details. It just said "the bond and the relationship that was hoped for didn't really progress ... so we have decided not to continue having Cherry here at the zoo".

At the secret workshop, Mr Wilcken, speaking in support of more pachyderms, told councillors that zoo research revealed that ratepayers wanted more elephants, and the business case supported the proposal.

But neither document was revealed. Curious councillors were told to contain their excitement. They couldn't see the evidence until the papers for next week's council meeting were circulated. Let's hope they're not stamped "Confidential".

The coyness seems counterproductive. If there is a good business case for new elephants, surely the more publicity it gets before councillors voted, the better.

I'm happily non-PC when it comes to elephants and zoos. A zoo without elephants might as well pack up. But there are limits and in March 2009, when Auckland City councillors returned from the summer holidays to vote in favour of buying a herd of up to 10 elephants, it seemed obvious they'd over-stepped these limits. The cost was horrendous enough, $13.5 million to set up and annual costs nudging $500,000. But there were also the logistical problems. The plan was to set them loose to breed in a 22,000sq m enclosure, purloined from Western Springs Reserve.

Publicist Bill Ralston was wheeled out to promote the case. The story was that the elephants would be part of a worldwide conservation bid to save the animals in the wild.

Confusingly, the zoo was in discussions with an elephant orphanage in Sri Lanka about obtaining animals. How this would help save animals in the wild was not clear. Regardless, for reasons of cost and site alone, it was a madcap scheme.

But a couple of orphans, well, why not? At least in Auckland there will be no land mines lurking to blow their feet off. And if the zoo authorities see the arrival of the orphans as a victory, the advance guard for their big herd, then so what? Dreams are free.