January 09, 2005

I WANT TO SEE HER DO THE ELLIPTICAL

MaggieJpg.jpg
The story of the day comes from the New York Times about Maggie, a 9,000-pound African elephant that has resided at the Alaska Zoo since 1983.
That's right, an elephant in Alaska.
Seems that Maggie is the focus for a struggle between zoo officials and tusk huggers who object to her location.
But the real story is about what they're doing to keep her happy:
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.
"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 last seven years, said on a recent frigid afternoon at the zoo, as Maggie stomped around her concrete barn.
The zoo has been under fire from national animal rights groups and some Alaska residents, who, in atypical acceptance of outside interference, have called for a boycott of the zoo until Maggie is moved south. Other zoos across the country, including those in San Francisco and Detroit, facing similar criticism and internal debates about the treatment of elephants in captivity, have closed their elephant exhibits in recent months, saying they were relocating the animals to warmer climates and to wide-open sanctuaries where they could roam for miles, as they do in the wild.
The plan here is to complete the treadmill, a first-of-its-kind $100,000 elephant exercise machine, by the summer. It would be 20 feet long and 5 feet wide, according to the plans, with a conveyer belt strong enough to allow Maggie, who is kept indoors here during most of the long winter, to get her blood flowing and move her creaky joints, zoo officials say.
A donor has already paid for the treadmill, the officials say, part of a roughly $500,000 "elephant house" improvement plan that would double the space in Maggie's 1,600-square-foot barn and add other amenities. Maggie, who has been trained to play the harmonica and to paint in watercolor on cardboard with her trunk, would have to be trained to use the treadmill.
If it keeps Maggie in shape, preventing the arthritis and foot infections that have plagued other elephants in the nation's zoos, then remaining in Anchorage is best for her, zoo officials say. Maggie has a history of not getting along with other elephants, and is easily made anxious by change, so the risks in moving her from "the only home she has known" outweigh the benefits, they say. Posted by Jeff at January 9, 2005 10:18 AM | TrackBack
Comments