Moving Jumbos to Rich Man's Private Zoo: A Mammoth Task

A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery.

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New Delhi –

The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry”, according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue centre” has raised eyebrows – including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to the inventory from India’s Central Zoo Authority.

The elephants are being transported the entire width of India, about 3,200km by road, from the misty forests of the northeast Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh to Jamnagar on the baking flatlands of Gujarat in the west.

It is a staggering journey, about the distance from Paris to Cairo, even for a zoo that has flown in animals from across the world.