Zoo Stories
Discover the incredible true story behind the Museum of Sydney's exhibition How to Move a Zoo.
Find out why and how hundreds of animals were moved from the Zoological Gardens at Moore Park to Taronga Zoo – and how Jessie the beloved elephant fared on her first ferry ride.
Photos from the archive
Related exhibition
Past Exhibition
Past exhibition
How to Move a Zoo
More than a hundred years ago, Sydney’s residents were woken by a cacophony of weird and wonderful noises. The zoo animals were on the move
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About How to Move a Zoo
During the summer of 2021–22 this exhibition showed how hundreds of animals journeyed across the city to their new home at Taronga Zoological Park in 1916
Jessie the elephant
More than any other zoo animal, Jessie the elephant captured the hearts of Sydneysiders, delighting visitors at Moore Park Zoo and then Taronga for more than 50 years
The story of how to move a zoo
In the early hours of Sunday, 24 September 1916, an elephant named Jessie walked out through the gates of the Zoological Gardens at Moore Park in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and began an extraordinary journey through the city