Dave Cody Jr.

From the list of elephant persons Family: Cody

Dave Cody Jr.
Dave Cody
Personal details
Country Australia
Locations
Title head zookeeper 1977-1988
Location at Sydney Zoo in Australia
Title elephant keeper 1947-1977
Location at Sydney Zoo in Australia
Biography details

Dave Major Cody Jr., zoo elephant keeper in Australia

Born 1926-02-04 dead 2010-12-10 .


David Major Cody was born on February 4, 1926, in Woolloomooloo, one of three children, and grew up in Concord West, where his father, David, was a council worker and his mother, Muriel, a part-time housekeeper at the parish manse. In 1947 Cody's uncle, Charles Cody (Chika), a senior keeper at Taronga, offered him a job working with the zoo's elephants.

For 41 years from 1947, Dave Cody was responsible for the care of Taronga Zoo's elephants, and he was head mammals keeper from 1977 until his retirement in 1988. He conducted the much-loved elephant rides at Taronga for just on 20 years, providing unforgettable memories for more than 5 million zoo visitors.

Cody accompanied elephants during their transfers to and from New Zealand, Singapore and Thursday Island and in 1977 spent 52 days at sea with four African elephants on their way from England to Sydney and on to Western Plains Zoo. In 1980, Taronga rejoiced when Cody was awarded the British Empire Medal for his outstanding career of dedicated service to the community, the state's two zoos and the zookeeping profession. This was followed by a state government 40 Year Service Medal and, in 1988, an Order of Australia Medal.




History shows that Dave Stayed on at the zoo for 49yrs, received an OBE and MBE for bringing the elephants out from England for Dubbo zoo.




LABOR MINISTER Clyde Cameron might have had unemployed lion tamers on his hands a while back but it’s a shame for Sydney’s Taronga Zoo that he didn’t also have experienced elephant handlers on the books. The zoo is struggling to maintain its popular elephant rides because of growing demands on the one man who can handle them, the mammal department head, Mr Dave Cody. As far as elephant rides go, it’s one-man-one-elephant, and for Cody there is less time these days for rides with delighted kids on the elephant’s back. Taronga advertised recently for an experienced elephant keeper to assist Cody but none of the applicants was suitable. They had little or no experience, or thought it would be an easy job when it wasn’t. “We had hoped to attract an experienced fellow from a circus,” a spokeswoman said. “We even drew a very long bow on the chance that there might be someone here from India or Burma, where elephants are worked. But this didn’t work out. We will now continue training existing staff under Mr Cody, which will take a long time, because Mr Cody has other duties as well as training, looking after the husbandly of the elephants and taking children for rides.” A lot depends on the elephants, too. At present they accept Cody as number-one elephant the leader of the Herd and the new assistant would have to work at being accepted as number-two elephant, but he must strictly adhere to the methods used by number one. The spokeswoman said that if the elephants didn’t accept him at all he would have “no chance in the world” of succeeding with them. “These are very big, very strong and very intelligent animals,” she said. “The zoo would never allow rides for children with a new man unless he had the absolute control Dave Cody has. And it could take years for him to get to that stage.”



Cody retired from the zoo in July 1988 and lived his retirement in Berkeley Vale.

Married to Beryl Jean Redmond Cody (1926–1995).
Burial at Palmdale Lawn Cemetery & Memorial Park. David Cody is survived by his sons, Trevor, James and Bill, eight grandchildren, younger brother, John, and his zoo ''family''. Beryl died in 1995 and their daughter, Helen, in 1994.



Reference list

References

Koehl, Dan, (2025). elephant keeper Dave Major Cody Jr. in Australia. Elephant Encyclopedia, available online retrieved 27 March 2025 at https://www.elephant.se/person.php?id=3277. (archived at the Wayback machine)

Sources used for this article is among others:



Search more with Google for Dave Cody Jr. The link will automatically include Dave Cody Jr. and open a new browser window.


Search more on the Internet Web for Dave Cody Jr. The link will automatically include Dave Cody Jr. and open a new browser window

Categories elephant keeper | zoo | Sydney Zoo | Cody family | Born 1926 | Dead 2010 | People from Australia


About this documentThis document was created: . Latest update: 2025-03-10 18:00:56 included characters with valid HTML5 Valid CSS


Visitors to this Website