I wonder if he "loves them" like he loved game show broads?

CircusNOSpin Senior Adviser, Cha Cha

Whoa!!!! This is freaky!!!!! If it wasn't for the glasses and the chain around his neck.........

Game show icon, Bob Barker

Former game show host Bob Barker is giving $880,000 to fly the Toronto Zoo’s three elephants Toka, Thika and Iringa to the PAWS sanctuary in California in a cargo plane.

Barker, who has already given $300,000 of his own money to PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) to help the organization get ready to accept the trio, says the additional $880,000 is available to PAWS in whole or part for the airplane trip.

“I’m very passionate about elephants and all animals … I love them,’’ said Barker in a telephone interview from California Friday.

The cost for the flight ranges from $520,000 to $880,000 depending on the availability of the large planes.

Ed Stewart, co-director of PAWS insists the flight will definitely happen, hopefully in May or early June.

“It’s our responsibility to move them, so it’s just us (making the arrangements to fly them)’’ Stewart said in an interview Friday.

A Toronto Zoo official wouldn’t confirm whether the zoo is in favour of the plan at this time — but added it does offer benefits.

“If the Zoo and PAWS veterinarians both agree this is the safest transportation option — we are pleased that it could now also be done at no cost to taxpayers, said zoo board chair Joe Torzsok.’’

Stewart said he has already spoken to a company that arranges for the cargo flights, and added he’s also writing a letter to the zoo to find out when it thinks the pachyderms will be ready to fly.

A large crate is on site at the Toronto Zoo, and keepers there are training the animals on how to enter.

Stewart said he opted for the plane over a transport truck because the zoo has expressed concerns that the three to five days needed to get to PAWS on the road may be too gruelling for the animals. Iringa has a bad foot.

By air it would take about five hours to get them to Sacramento, and then another 90 minutes by truck to PAWS.

PAWS has used airplanes to transport elephants to its facility from zoos in three other cases “very successfully’’ Stewart said, adding the animals are not tranquilized for the trip.

The benefit is the cargo planes have more overhead space than trucks, said Julie Woodyer, a director with Zoocheck Canada, an animal rights group involved in the process.

Toronto city councillor Raymond Cho, a member of the zoo’s board of directors, said he got a long distance call from Barker Thursday afternoon about the offer, and thanked the celebrity.

Cho has already visited PAWS on a scouting mission, and insists the three elephants will be better off there than in Toronto.

The zoo board voted to send the elephants packing citing reasons that included lack of funding to build an appropriate enclosure for them here. Zoo staff initially searched for an accredited Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) zoo to relocate the animals to, but then city council stepped in and voted to send the trio to PAWS, a vote that deeply angered some zoo staff who feel the animals are better off in an AZA zoo.