3 Calgary Zoo elephants moving to Washington, D.C.

The Calgary Zoo is sending its remaining elephants to a facility in Washington, D.C.

• Elephant at Calgary Zoo headed for Florida
• Elephants at Calgary Zoo to be relocated

Next spring Kamala, Swarna and Maharani will head to the Smithsonian's National Zoo.

They will be reunited with a couple of elephants that two of them lived with at an orphanage in Sri Lanka more than 30 years ago.

Donald Moore, an officialwith Smithsonian's, says they'll be studying themto see if the elephantsremember each other and how they'll react.

"We think they'll remember each other, and we are in conversationabout how to study that along with some university researchers in psychology and communications," he said."So it's going to be a very exciting time for these elephants in Washington, D.C."

The zoo announced earlier this summer that its lone male Asian elephant, Spike, will be moved to the Busch Gardens zoo in Tampa, Fla., later this year.

Zoo officials said they did an extensive international search and this accredited facility met their stringent criteria to take care of the three female elephants.

• Listen to an interview with Calgary Zoo curator Colleen Bairdabout the move:

The move was made in the best interest of the animals and not because of recent flood damage to the zoo, according to officials.

The decision to move the animals was madelast April because the island that houses the zoo cannot accommodate a large herd, and elephantwelfare is better served by being part of a larger social group.