Kifaru, the southern white rhino, has travelled the distance and is now at his new home, the Halls Gap Zoo.

Canberra Zoo rhino keeper Siobhan Block travelled with the team to bring Kifaru interstate and has been his primary carer for more than four years.

“Kifaru was born in Hamilton Zoo, New Zealand and has grown up at the Canberra Zoo. It's really nice to see him come to his new home. He is approximately two tonne in weight," she said.

Ms Block said Kifaru is currently nine-years-old and southern white rhinos can live up to 40 years in captivity.

“We can expect to have this guy around for a very long time,” she said.

Kifaru will form part of the global captive breeding program and Ms Block said hopefully in the future he will be put with a female or start an artificial insemination program.

"There are only 20,000 southern white rhinos left in the wild. Rhinos such as Kifaru have important genetic diversity to add to the region," she said.

Ms Block said Kifaru travelled like an "angel" from Canberra Zoo overnight to arrive at Halls Gap on October 25.

"He was sleeping for most of the journey and very calm. He didn't like the bright lights of the trucks going past but he was really brave," she said.

EARLIER:

Kifaru, the southern white rhino, has almost completed his journey to his new home at the Halls Gap Zoo.

The zoo has joined an international effort to revive species numbers and is part of an international endangered breeding program.

General manager Carlee Vokes said Kifaru would arrive at the zoo on Thursday. 

“We have placed the final touches on the enclosure and ready to welcome our new arrival,” she said.

Kifaru will arrive in Halls Gap on Thursday after travelling overnight from his current home at the Canberra Zoo.

“We will be placing him in a crate-style shipping container and loading him on to the truck late (on Wednesday) afternoon and bringing him overnight when it is cool, to keep him as comfortable as possible on the way," she said.

Members of the Halls Gap Zoo have spent two days with Kifaru in Canberra after driving a Hertz truck full of hay for the zoo.

“We were going with an empty truck, so we decided to do our bit and help out the Canberra Zoo in these trying times of supplying stock and animals with feed,” she said.

Read more: Halls Gap Zoo joins breeding program

A film crew from Extreme Animal Transport will travel with the Halls Gap Zoo employees as well as three staff from the Canberra Zoo – a vet, a handler and one other employee.

The staff from Canberra Zoo will stay with Kifaru while he settles into his new home.

“The rhino enclosure is all set up and ready to go. We are anticipating Kifaru will settle right in and be really happy with everything we have in place for him,” she said.

A crane will lift the crate containing Kifaru off the truck about 6am Thursday. He will then walk out of the crate into his new home.

“Depending on how he settles in we can’t guarantee how close he will be for visitors to see him straight away, but we are hoping it will be as soon as possible,” Ms Vokes said.

Another southern white rhino from New Zealand will join Kifaru in mid-2019.

“He was still not quite ready to leave his mother and now it is beginning to be too warm for the long journey. He will spend time in quarantine when he gets into Australia – about March next year. We can’t wait for him to arrive as well,” she said.

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