Monarto Safari Park Monarto Safari Park News 2025

Luke899 said:
Some good news for Permai, for the first time in two years, she has stopped swaying :):)

Seems Burma is doing the job with good companionship already!
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It’s an encouraging sign, though I’ll note that these behaviours have the potential to become ingrained and she may still exhibit them from time to time.

Mek Kepah at Melbourne exhibits the most abnormal behaviour (e.g. swaying) of any elephant in the matriarchal herd - a behaviour acquired in the old elephant exhibit she lived in (at times alone) until 2003. Melbourne’s Trail of the Elephants is built to a much higher standard and provides the elephants with a multigenerational herd, so her herd mates exhibit far less of these behaviours.

The hope for the Werribee complex is that it’ll provide the elephants with an environment so stimulating, there will be a noticeable reduction in abnormal behaviour; and an increase in natural behaviour (e.g. foraging). The same will hopefully be observed at Monarto Safari Park, with Permai and the others engaged with their exhibit (and the other elephants).
 
Behind the scenes elephant encounter:

Monarto Safari Park are now offering elephant encounters:

Up Close with Giants - Monarto Safari Park

Highlights of this experience:
  • A small group behind-the-scenes elephant encounter
  • Hand-feed an elephant and engage in enrichment activities
  • Learn from expert keepers about elephant care and conservation
  • Gain insight into their unique behaviours and personalities
 
Dissappointing to see the price. This is a stretch even for the wealthiest families.

$500 per person (adult or child) for only 75min is too much in my opinion, but Monarto have to cover costs somehow...

The only comparable experience in terms of price for a singular-animal encounter at an australia zoo would be the Giant Panda experience at Adelaide, for $300. Thats understandable due to the extreme rarity of the species.

But my gosh, $500 for an elephant... crazy
 
Luke899 said:
Dissappointing to see the price. This is a stretch even for the wealthiest families.

$500 per person (adult or child) for only 75min is too much in my opinion, but Monarto have to cover costs somehow...

The only comparable experience in terms of price for a singular-animal encounter at an australia zoo would be the Giant Panda experience at Adelaide, for $300. Thats understandable due to the extreme rarity of the species.

But my gosh, $500 for an elephant... crazy
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100%

That price is ludicrous

poor form from Monarto imo
 
Luke899 said:
Dissappointing to see the price. This is a stretch even for the wealthiest families.

$500 per person (adult or child) for only 75min is too much in my opinion, but Monarto have to cover costs somehow...

The only comparable experience in terms of price for a singular-animal encounter at an australia zoo would be the Giant Panda experience at Adelaide, for $300. Thats understandable due to the extreme rarity of the species.

But my gosh, $500 for an elephant... crazy
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The VIP Panda tour was actually also $500, I assume the elephant tour is considered Monarto’s answer to it. In both cases, shamefully overpriced. You would be better off going to Thailand to see elephants for not a whole lot more….
 
Just commented on facebook under their post announcing this new experience.

Commented something along the lines of "This is crazy expensive, and totally out of reach for families. Ludicrous"

Guess what, comment got deleted.

Perhaps I WON'T spend my money at Monarto if they're intolerant to critisim. Seems other people are now commenting the same thing.

Maybe I'll go to werribee instead.
 
Luke899 said:
Just commented on facebook under their post announcing this new experience.

Commented something along the lines of "This is crazy expensive, and totally out of reach for families. Ludicrous"

Guess what, comment got deleted.

Perhaps I WON'T spend my money at Monarto if they're intolerant to critisim. Seems other people are now commenting the same thing.

Maybe I'll go to werribee instead.
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It's always very frustrating to have a legitimate posts reasonably critiquing removed regardless, I hope you don't feel too disheartened Luke. Still go visit Burma & Permai at Monarto next month I reckon once general admissions visitation allows going to see them at their habitat; but yeah that price per person for a close up-personal interaction with them (and maybe getting to feed them some of their food) at $500 a person its extrememly expensive (as someone not financially well-off at all myself, do notice also that it's a very hefty price to say the least with wanting to meet Burma & Permai up-close and personal). But yeah my advice to you man is don't deny yourself the experience of going there to visit them as a general visitor, even though the zoo is charging hugely expensive prices for the VIP experience with them, and deleting critiques about the hefty VIP price from their social media which agree is poor-form and not good way of them to handle constructive critcisms and like said, understand your frustration about. Visit Werribee too of course if you're able to.
 
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That is extremely expansive. But i get the feeling this isnt a numbers game type experience. They don't want/don't have capacity for large numbers of people to experiance it so they will charge higher and deal with lower numbers. Insurance for any large farm animal is horrendous i can't imaging what it is for an elephant. That will also be a contributing factor. Personally ill just settle for watching elephants in paddocks.
 
Tiger91 said:
That is extremely expansive. But i get the feeling this isnt a numbers game type experience. They don't want/don't have capacity for large numbers of people to experiance it so they will charge higher and deal with lower numbers. Insurance for any large farm animal is horrendous i can't imaging what it is for an elephant. That will also be a contributing factor. Personally ill just settle for watching elephants in paddocks.
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It could definitely be a supply/demand influence intially. These are the first elephants in a South Australian zoo in 30 years. People are highly exciting to see them and having an encounter at a lower price would overwhelm the system with demands, potentially disappointing those who wanted to book but couldn’t.

That said, I agree with others that the price is too steep for the average zoo visitor. I for one will similarly enjoy seeing them on exhibit if I visit, with the new facility being exciting in its own right.
 
Luke899 said:
Permai and Burma will be physically introduced together without barriers within two weeks. Permai has taken longer than expected to adjust, which is understandable.
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That’s good news they will soon have their first face to face meeting. Hopefully it goes well, as by the time they meet it’ll be less than a month before the Taronga elephants arrive

It’ll be really interesting to see if long term they pair off into friendship pairs of Burma/Permai and Pak Boon/Tang Mo; or whether the Taronga cows develop stronger relationships with one of the Auckland/Perth cows than with each other. I could see Tang Mo becoming close with either of the older cows, but Permai would match her better on activity levels. Burma always found Anjalee a bit much.
 
Jaiden said:
I can’t wait for all of the Elephants to be a heard I hope all of the Cows get along. And I also hope Monarto can breed the cows with Putra Mas by the end of next year:)
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Very exciting times ahead!

At this stage we believe only Pak Boon (1992) will be breeding. Burma (1982) and Permai (1989) are nulliparous and well past the recommended age for first time breeding (early 20’s); while @steveroberts and I were advised by a Taronga keeper that the Berlin team had investigated Tang Mo’s reproductive health and ruled her out for future breeding.
 
Zoofan15 said:
Very exciting times ahead!

At this stage we believe only Pak Boon (1992) will be breeding. Burma (1982) and Permai (1989) are nulliparous and well past the recommended age for first time breeding (early 20’s); while @steveroberts and I were advised by a Taronga keeper that the Berlin team had investigated Tang Mo’s reproductive health and ruled her out for future breeding.
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when i asked a few years ago about breeding Permai (i think this was in 2017ish) her keeper at the time said she wasn't going to be bred but i honestly can't remember the reason they told me.
 
ramsayi said:
when i asked a few years ago about breeding Permai (i think this was in 2017ish) her keeper at the time said she wasn't going to be bred but i honestly can't remember the reason they told me.
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By 2017, Permai would have been 28 years old and past the recommended age of first time breeding.

There were numerous attempts to breed in the 2000’s, which I will summarise here:

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Reproductive History of Perth’s Elephants

Breeding was attempted at Perth Zoo with two elephants:

1.0 Putra Mas (1989)
0.1 Permai (1989)

The first recorded natural mating was in 2005 (unsuccessful obviously); however a problem developed where Permai would become scared during the mounting process and Putra Mas would become aggressive in response.

They resorted to AI and by 2009, there had been three unsuccessful AI attempts:

On the first attempt, Permai released two follicles at ovulation and was thought to have aborted the pregnancy due to the challenges of carrying twins.

On the second attempt, the semen used was of poor quality.

On the third attempt, they missed her cycle by two weeks.

Following the AI attempts, they returned to natural mating, restraining Putra Mas with a leg chain and using positive reinforcement when he mounted Permai to acclimatise them to the process. Unfortunately no successful mating ever occurred.

Perth Zoo contributed to the regional programme via Putra Mas acting as an AI donor for cows at other zoos. He sired two calves at Melbourne and Dubbo:

0.1 Willow (2016-2016) to Num-Oi at Melbourne
0.1 Kanlaya (2018) to Porntip at Dubbo

———————

Although it’s unfortunate that Putra Mas and Permai never bred, the positive to take from this is that Putra Mas made multiple attempts to mount Permai, albeit becoming frustrated by her reluctance to allow him to do so. If Putra Mas is paired with a (cooperative) proven cow, such as Pak Boon, I’m hopeful a natural mating could be achieved.
 
Bird updates. Two Plains-Wanderer chicks have hatched and are being fostered by a male that wasn't their sire. Monarto's ex-situ population of endangered Mallee Emu-Wrens is now at 25 birds with their second breeding season increasing the group to 15 chicks. The park are currently developing breeding and care guidelines for the emu-wrens - reported on their FB page.
 
Jaiden said:
In the Monarto Safari lodge add there is a clip of a African elephants I wonder is that a sign that Monarto is getting African Elephants.View attachment 775593
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This was discussed on the first page of this thread. In short, the video is a false trail. Those who put together the video may have been drawn to the image of the African elephant (with sizeable tusks) in a savannah setting in the absence of footage of a herd of Asian elephants roaming Monarto’s paddocks at the time. That’s not to say it excuses failing to ensure they’re accurately representing the visitor experience, but it’ll likely go over the heads of the general public.

Asian elephants are the focus species of the region. Bar Australia Zoo continuing with Sumatran elephants (a subspecies of Asian elephant), I don’t expect to see any detraction from zoos wholeheartedly supporting the Asian elephant programme (Indian and Sri Lankan subspecies).
 
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