Thousands of people have donated to help establish a new elephant habitat at Monarto Safari Park, south of Adelaide.

Three Asian elephants will be relocated to Monarto Safari Park – Permai and Putra Mas from the Perth Zoo and Burma from the Auckland Zoo.

Zoos SA Chief Executive Elaine Bensted says the response from the public has been amazing, with the zoo reaching its $2 million fundraising target 28 days early.

“We’ve had over 4500 individual donors, and that started right from when we did the launch,” Elaine says. “Then we got that amazing kickstart with a single donation of a million dollars, which was phenomenal. I think there’s something very special about elephants and I sort of always knew that.”

Work will soon begin on the 14-hectare elephant enclosure, which is slightly larger than Westfield Marion.

“There’s still a big elephant house [from when Monarto last had an elephant] but it’s obviously 30 years old, so it needs a lot of work,” Elaine says.

“It didn’t have water, didn’t have sprinkler systems and misting so we’ll need to add to it. We’re also building big outdoor yards, big indoor areas… a water hole, bathing areas, and visitor viewing areas.” The elephants are expected to arrive in 2024 or 2025.