Baby elephant Nandi´s arrival in New Zealand unlikely as concerns loom over earmarked funds

Nandi the baby Sri Lankan elephant promised to New Zealand is unlikely to arrive, amid concerns about gifting endangered animals and the funds earmarked to support them, foreign media reported.

Sri Lanka has already given New Zealand an elephant: Anjalee arrived in 2015 after spending three months in quarantine in Niue. But Nandi’s arrival has been in limbo since April after conservation groups and animal rights activists lodged a petition in the Sri Lankan Court of Appeal, which granted an interim ban on her export.

While the two elephants were gifted to New Zealand, there are significant costs involved in bringing the animals to New Zealand. In 2011 Auckland Council, which owns the not-for-profit zoo, approved $3.2 million to cover the costs of transferring two elephants.

In 2016, the Sri Lankan Government formed a committee to investigate the Zoological Gardens Department after a flurry of stories and social media posts about shocking conditions within the country’s zoos and wildlife parks.

The committee’s confidential findings, provided to Newsroom by Sri Lankan sources, also raise concerns about the gifting of elephants to other countries including the transfer of Anjalee to Auckland Zoo.

A memorandum of understanding signed between the director of Auckland Zoo and Dehiwala Zoo did not include details of the financial assistance to the Zoological Gardens Department, but some information was revealed in an unearthed letter that raised questions about whether money had been declared to the Sri Lankan Treasury.

“Based on the letter date 18 August, 2014, from Jonathan Wilcken, Director, Auckland Zoo, it owes LKR $25,000,000 (NZ$230,000) to the Government of Sri Lanka as the first instalment, for the supply of one elephant of the two agreed.

“This money should have been ideally declared and debited to the consolidated fund, or considered and declared in the development fund of the Zoological Department. If such funds still lie in New Zealand, it is a violation of the financial regulations of the Government of Sri Lanka.”

The findings, which were delivered to the government in October 2016, also raised questions about tuberculosis testing kits for elephants imported into Sri Lanka from New Zealand.

While the acting director told the committee the kits were paid for from the fund held in New Zealand, the former director said they were instead a donation from Auckland Zoo’s Centre for Conservation Medicine.

Alongside the Auckland Zoo elephant transfer the committee also said elephants given to the Samsung Everland Theme Park in South Korea and to the Chimelong Group in China likely breached the Flora and Fauna Protection Act as they were owned by private companies.

In response, Wilcken told Newsroom that the money was not just for the transfer of Nandi but for wider support for the Sri Lankan Zoological Department.

It was not uncommon for zoos in the developed world to support those in less developed countries and Auckland had been a longtime supporter of Sri Lankan projects.

He was unaware of the concerns raised in the report but confirmed the money referred to remained in New Zealand after the new Sri Lankan Government indicated it would prefer it to be used specifically for elephant conservation. They had yet to hear back about the finer details.

The tuberculosis testing kits were an additional donation, he said.