The protest stopped the eight elephants being flown to a quarantine centre on the Cocos Islands, where they were due to stay for three months before being sent to the zoos for a conservation project.

ABC TV reported the zoos were considering legal action against the activists standing in their way.

But a spokesman for the zoos, said on Wednesday any talk of legal action to recover transport costs was "premature at best".

"That's just something that could be considered in the future," Mark Williams said. "At the moment we're focused on bringing the animals here."

Mr Williams told the AAP news agency the cost of the failed trans¬port operation was "in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars". However a zoo spokesman told The Nation last week the cost was Bt49 million (A$1.7 million), mainly for the rent of a cargo plane that sat idle at Don Muang airport.

The zoos say they have met all the necessary regulations in bringing the elephants to Australia, which Williams classed as a "vital conservation project".

The elephants, meanwhile, were very happy, he was quoted saying.

"They're completely impervious to this. They're having a lovely life. They get all their meals catered for. They're in daily training programs, they work every day with their keepers and it's just a beautiful sit¬uation. They have integrated won¬derfully as families."

Mr Williams said opposition to the transfer did not make any sense.

"We're no longer displaying animals like zoos did 30 years ago, just because you want to display them," he said. "Globally you have to justify every decision that you make to display an animal ... and we do that all the time."

The Nation