Pablo, an 800-kilogram hippopotamus from Le PAL animal park in central France, is travelling more than 16,000 kilometres to Monarto Safari Park in Australia.
The five-year-old male is moving under an international conservation breeding programme to renew an aging zoo population and boost genetic diversity, after a four-decade Australian ban on importing the species left the country without breeding bulls.
Pablo departs on Thursday at around 4:00 p.m., travelling inside a specially disinfected metal container by road to Brussels before boarding long-haul cargo flights via Singapore to Melbourne, with his landing scheduled for Sunday morning.
Nicolas Geli, the zoological manager coordinating the major operation at Le PAL, said that moving any animal over such distances involves inherent risks, noting that the zoological team had to identify every potential hazard and try to minimise each one.
Flight route and transport logistics
The intercontinental transfer required two years of meticulous planning. Geli explained that modern freight systems, whether by air or sea, routinely handle large loads, meaning the animal's size and 800-kilogram weight posed no technical obstacle for the logistics team.
Instead, the sheer distance of 16,000 kilometres between the French park and South Australia represents the true test, as prolonged travel can have a direct impact on an animal's wellbeing. Geli stressed that the transport had to be completed as quickly as possible to protect Pablo.
Organisers selected an air route designed for minimum transit time, featuring a single brief stopover in Singapore where the aircraft will refuel without unloading the cargo crate. A second refueling stop was originally planned, but organisers eliminated it to shorten the journey by at least five hours.
Enduring such an extensive trip requires the animal to be in excellent health. A veterinarian is monitoring Pablo closely right up to the moment of departure and must issue an official medical certificate confirming his condition. At five years of age, the young hippo is in the prime of his life and physically fit for his first long journey.
Medical training and bottle feeding
Preparing Pablo for the journey demanded months of specialised medical conditioning to familiarise him with critical transit routines. Although the five-year-old hippo already performs many tasks independently, the training made it much easier for veterinary staff and keepers to handle him.
Among the essential routines Pablo had to learn was drinking water directly from a bottle. Geli explained that bottle drinking is necessary because strict aviation safety rules require that no liquid of any kind can leak or escape from his transport crate during the flight.
Providing food during the flight is considerably simpler. An experienced animal keeper will accompany Pablo on board the cargo plane with rations of hay and pellets prepared in advance to sustain him throughout the trip.
Pablo also completed several weeks of crate training, learning to walk in and out of his metal transport box almost automatically. This conditioning will allow him to undertake the entire multi-day flight fully awake, avoiding the significant physiological risks linked to chemical sedation and general anaesthesia in large animals.
A major challenge remains keeping his skin properly moisturised. Hippopotamuses are semi-aquatic mammals that rely on constant hydration to protect their skin from drying out and cracking. To solve this, the keeper travelling at his side will carry fresh water and a misting spray to keep Pablo moist and comfortable at regular intervals during the flight.
Quarantine protocols and biosecurity checks
Pablo carried out his intensive pre-travel training while held in a mandatory quarantine required under Australian biosecurity regulations. Australia prohibited the importation of hippopotamuses for 40 years and enforces exceptionally strict sanitary standards to safeguard its native ecosystems.
Beyond physical preparation, the pre-export quarantine allowed veterinary specialists to conduct a comprehensive battery of health tests. Geli noted that these tests were vital to guarantee that the animal carries no germs, bacteria, or viruses that could introduce sanitary problems after arriving in Australia.
The logistics will begin on Thursday around 4:00 p.m., when Pablo will step into his thoroughly disinfected metal transport crate. A heavy crane will hoist the container onto a transport lorry for the overland journey across the border to Brussels, where he will board his initial flight.
After a short transit stop in Singapore, the flight will head directly to Melbourne for an arrival on Sunday morning. From Melbourne, Pablo will travel to Monarto Safari Park near Adelaide, where he will enter another mandatory post-arrival quarantine before finally resting and joining his fellow hippos.
Breeding programme and genetic diversity
Pablo's move to the Southern Hemisphere is part of a coordinated international conservation effort rather than an isolated transfer. The project was organised under the auspices of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or WAZA, which connected the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria with the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia.
Because Australia banned the importation of hippopotamuses for four decades, regional wildlife institutions experienced a total absence of breeding males. Local captive herds grew increasingly aged, creating an urgent need to restart reproduction and maintain healthy genetic lines across Australian zoological collections.
To address the genetic bottleneck, Monarto Safari Park will welcome Pablo alongside a second male hippopotamus sourced from another French zoological facility. Together, the two French bulls will revitalise the local population and ensure long-term genetic diversity in accredited Australasian zoos.
Le PAL, nestled in the Allier department of central France, combines an extensive wildlife park with theme park attractions, providing semi-natural environments for dozens of exotic species. Monarto Safari Park, situated outside Adelaide in South Australia, is one of the largest open-range zoological facilities in the world, spanning more than 1,500 hectares dedicated to international breeding programs for threatened megafauna.
