SAN ANDREAS, CALIF.—The trucks rolled in as the sun began to set over the hills they are now free to roam.

After two years of limbo, umpteen delays and a 70-hour cross-border road trip , the Toronto Zoo elephants have made it to their new home in California.

Iringa, Toka and Thika arrived Sunday evening at the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) sanctuary, where the three aging pachyderms will spend the rest of their lives. Iringa and Toka came first; Thika arrived a little later.

And so ends a storied chapter in the Toronto Zoo’s history, one that has shrouded the 40-year-old institution in controversy and put the city at the centre of a heated global debate about the future of elephants in zoos.

The crate carrying Iringa was the first to be hoisted to the ground by crane. She appeared calm as she was checked by a staff veterinarian and began to trumpet loudly when she entered the female elephant barn. Crews continued to work on Toka’s crane as darkness fell. Thika’s crate was the last to be unloaded.

“I’m sleeping in the barn tonight,” PAWS director Ed Stewart told the Star. It will take the pachyderms some time to get used to their new surroundings, and he wants to be close by. Stewart said he has a little bed he uses for such occasions.

PAWS has divided its 35-hectare space for African elephants in half, giving the creatures from Toronto their own private area, for now. They will be slowly and carefully introduced to the other three African elephants residing at the sanctuary before the six are mixed together. “Kind of like what you do with cats,” said Councillor Michelle Berardinetti, a key player in the move to send the elephants to PAWS.

Former game show host Bob Barker, who comes to PAWS so regularly he said he has a cottage named after him, was there to witness the arrival, wearing a PAWS ballcap and an Adidas tracksuit.

“It’s about time,” he said.

Barker, who is covering the cost of the move, came down hard on the zoo. “I have never met with so much acrimony as we did in Toronto,” he said. “And why I don’t know.”

The elephant convoy left Toronto at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday after a day-long delay and yet another round of squabbling between the zoo and those managing the move for PAWS. The animals and crew crossed the U.S. border without incident and drove through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada before reaching San Andreas, a rural town located in the northern California foothills, 130 km southeast of Sacramento.

Iringa and Toka travelled in separate crates on one flatbed truck; Thika, the largest, was in a third crate on a truck of her own. They were accompanied by two vets, three U.S. handlers, three Toronto keepers and Dave Barney, the Toronto Zoo’s manager for animal care. Elephant transportation guidelines recommend that handlers familiar with the animals travel with them during moves, but it remained uncertain up to the last minute whether the Toronto keepers would travel with the convoy. They were not allowed to take photos along the way.

Matthew Berridge, vice-president of the zoo workers union and a keeper at the zoo, told the Star earlier Sunday that staff have always fought for what they felt was best for the elephants. He said the next few days are going to be hard for the keepers as they come to terms with the loss of the animals they have cared for for years.

The elephant controversy began in May 2011 when zoo officials presented a report to the zoo board recommending the closure of the pachyderm exhibit. Four elephants had died at the zoo in as many years, and with only three remaining a decision had to be made about the future of the elephant program. The zoo either needed to invest tens of millions of dollars into expanding the exhibit to meet increasing standards of care, or shut it down.

The zoo board voted to shut it down, and instructed management to look into new homes for the elephants — institutions accredited by the U.S.-based Association of Zoos and Aquariums that met Toronto standards and could take the elephants.

Six months later, with another winter approaching and no written recommendation from zoo management, councillor Berardinetti tabled a surprise motion to send the elephants to PAWS, which passed by a landslide. Zoo officials and elephant handlers were outraged, and the fight began.

Sanctuaries have their own form of accreditation but follow different rules than zoos. The clash between the two stems from a collision of two fundamental belief systems. Zoos conduct research, fund and participate in conservation programs, and charge admission to people who want to see their animal collections. Sanctuaries like PAWS operate as retirement homes for aging and ailing animals, and keep their animals, for the most part, out of the public eye. But the key element over which the two sides disagree is breeding. The zoo industry, led by the AZA, breeds its pachyderms in an effort to create a self-sustaining population for North American zoo collections. PAWS is against breeding elephants in captivity.

The departure of the three “ladies,” as their keepers fondly call them, marks the end of the Toronto Zoo’s 40-year elephant program. Iringa and Toka, youngsters spared from a deadly cull in Mozambique, were among the first pachyderms to arrive at the zoo in 1974, the year it opened. Thika was born in Toronto; the one-hectare zoo paddock is all she has ever known.

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The elephants formerly of Toronto will now live on rolling grassland with trees, meadows, lakes, a walnut orchard, three heated barns and a Jacuzzi.

Word of their arrival in California was sweet news for some; for others, bitter.