Mila enjoying the rain and mud 16 July 2025
The Franklin Zoo & Wildlife Sanctuary is closed permanently
The Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust would like to thank our local community, friends and supporters, and staff from Franklin Zoo for their support following the death of Dr Helen Schofield – the heart and soul of Franklin Zoo. Dr Schofield provided a facility to care for native and exotic animals in need.
It has been a very difficult year as we have come to terms with this tragedy, and tried to perform Helen’s multiple roles as accredited vet, zoo operator and director, and elephant programme manager (all unpaid). However, Helen is irreplaceable and this is why the Trustees have had to make the incredibly difficult decision to close Franklin Zoo.
Franklin Zoo’s dedicated staff are all deeply saddened by this decision, but understand that Mila and all of our animals deserve to live lives that are as full and enriching as possible. We are grateful that they will continue to work with us, to achieve this.
Helen dedicated her life to animals, and her greatest dream was for Mila, the last circus elephant in NZ, to be moved to a facility where she could live out the rest of her days with other elephants. There are no other African elephants in New Zealand. We will be able to realise this dream with the fantastic support we have had from individuals donating to this cause. We will achieve Helen’s dream, and we believe that the best way to honour this is to focus resources into our goal of working towards Mila’s relocation to a facility overseas so that we can secure and provide for her future.
We have been worked closely with the Australasian Zoo & Aquarium Association and the Ministry for Primary Industries to successfully find homes for the all the animals and birds in our care, and secure their futures. Auckland Zoo staff including their vet team, have assisted us in the care of Mila and all the animals, for which we are very grateful.
We would like to thank everyone who has donated to our fundraising efforts to cover the day to day care of all the animals at Franklin Zoo and towards our goal of relocating Mila to a facility overseas. We are well on our way to achieving this goal and are really pleased with the fund raising so far and are extremely grateful to everybody who has donated. We are a long way ahead but still have some way to go to secure Mila’s future. The funding will pay for Mila’s transport NZ side, logistics, travel crate, cranes, trucks, medical testing, chartered cargo flight, quarantine and transport in the US towards the end of 2013.
The ongoing fundraising remains our top priority, so if you would like to donate to the Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust, please visit our website www.franklinzoo.co.nz
0r you can donate by direct credit to The Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust,
National Bank of NZ, account number 06-0401-0327303-00
or post a cheque to Franklin Zoo Charitable Trust, 83 Ridge Road RD4, Tuakau, Auckland 2694.