Maggie, the Alaskan Elephant, goes Hollywood
Maggie, the Alaskan Elephant, has retired to California as have many Alaskans before her. Maggie was brought up here as a calf in 1983 to be a companion to Annabelle, our first elephant around whom the zoo was built. Unfortunately, the two ladies never quite hit it off. Maggie has been the reigning queen of the Alaska Zoo since Annabelle's passing in 1997.Maggie has also been front page news off and on for the past few years. There has been much debate over having an elephant in Alaska considering our long cold winters (she had to stay inside all winter long), over her lack of companionship, and the difficulty in getting her on a regular exercise regimen in the winter months. In fact, the zoo built Maggie the first elephant treadmill at a great expense. After several years of training efforts, they had still not gotten her to use the darn thing (much like myself at the gym).
Outside organizations continued to call for Maggie's move to warmer climates. Then last spring, Maggie laid down and could not get herself back up… twice. (Does that bring a certain TV commercial to mind? "Help! Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!̶ 
The fire department was called in to hoist her back onto her feet. The call to move Maggie became louder and more insistent. Even Game Show host, Bob Barker, threw his 2-cents in the ring (okay, it was more like 1 million dollars) by coming up and playing "Let's Make A Deal" in person. He offered $750,000 for the lifetime care of Maggie, $100,000 to the Alaska Zoo, and offered to pay the one-way elephant fare for a ticket for Maggie to fly to PAWS in California. After much deliberation, that is the deal that stuck. Maggie left yesterday.
The Alaska Zoo is still a vital and interesting place. Now, all of our animals are ones that could feasibly escape and survive on their own in the wilds of Alaska. Maggie was the only one who didn't fit the bill that way. The wolf puppies are grown and have been moved to a new enclosure. The new black bear enclosure is coming along slowly. With all of the animals there, I have to admit that my favorites are the most common, the moose and the porcupines. Even though I see moose in my yard every week, he is especially impressive because his rack is so incredibly huge. It's amazing he can lift his head up. The porcupines are just so darned cute they are hard to resist, especially since you can see them up close.
Our zoo is small, and I can't help but wonder what will become of Maggie's elephant house. Are they bringing in a new amazing northern climate type of animal? Or something that can be indoors year-round and not become a media focal point for the cruel Alaskan's forcing warm weather beasts to suffer the cold? Is it politically correct to wish for a "monkey house?" If I hear of any updates, I will pass them along, but in the meantime, those of you who want to check in on Maggie can by going to the following websites.
The Alaska Zoo will be keeping us informed at:
http://www.alaskazoo.org/There is a live webcam at PAWS so that we can all get a firsthand glimpse of our Maggie in her new environment at:
http://www.pawsweb.org/web_cams.html
The Associated Press is following Maggie too:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j5DUkTKs0473ABpEEqQ1U700wZKgD8SLK26G1
