Elephant Not Suited for Alaska? Go Figure...

Elephant will tread new ground

By Sarah Kershaw
The New York Times
January 10, 2005

Maggie, the African elephant who has resided at the Alaska Zoo here since 1983 -- a creature of the tropics amid snow leopards and polar bears -- is, after all, said to be rather moody and prickly.

But whether Maggie, a 22-year-old native of Zimbabwe, is depressed because she is spending another dark and freezing winter in Alaska has been the subject of a long and charged debate, here and across the country.

Facing growing demands that she be moved to a warmer climate, where she could socialize with other elephants and get much more outdoor exercise, Alaska Zoo officials decided to keep her in Anchorage for now but came up with an unusual proposal to improve her exercise situation: They plan to build this 9,120-pound elephant a treadmill.

A treadmill?! This is a sad day in PR history. Give it up already.

It's always entertaining to hear zoo keepers try to make a case for using elephants in their facility.

"I just don't know where you are going to put her where she's happier than she is here," Rob Smith, Maggie's trainer and manager for the past seven years, said on a recent frigid afternoon at the zoo, as Maggie stomped around her concrete barn.

Brilliant.