Garden City to swap elephants with Florida zoo, expand facilities

? Hoping to help boost the population of captive elephants, the zoo in this southwest Kansas town is trading two younger pachyderms for two older ones from a Florida zoo.

Chana and Moki, 24-year-old African elephants, spend some time with trainer Pablo Holguin during a media open house Tuesday at the Lee Richardson Zoo in Garden City. The pair, who have called Garden City home for 20 years, will be moving to Jacksonville, Fla., soon for breeding purposes.

Moki and Chana, both female African elephants and tenants of Lee Richardson Zoo since 1986, will be transferred next month to Florida’s Jacksonville Zoo for breeding with male elephants there.

Replacement elephants, Missy and Kimba – both too old to be bred – could arrive in Garden City from the Jacksonville Zoo as early as December.

Efforts to artificially inseminate Chana, now 24, failed in 2003.

Lee Richardson doesn’t have space to accommodate a much larger bull elephant.

“We’ll sure miss them because they have a lot of idiosyncrasies we know and love,” said Kathy Sexson, director of the Lee Richardson Zoo.

But she added that moving Moki and Chana so they can breed is “best for the species.”

Their departure also will give the Garden City zoo time to expand its elephant facilities and bring them into compliance with new guidelines set by the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn.

The project, which will cost about $126,000, should be done within two months of the elephants’ departure.