Zoo group: Alaska’s only elephant should be moved

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska’s only elephant should be moved to a zoo with better facilities and programs where she can enjoy the company of other female elephants, the head of a national zoo group said Wednesday.

“In our view, the elephant could thrive better elsewhere,” said Sydney J. Butler, executive director of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association in Washington, D.C.

The AZA represents 214 accredited zoos and aquariums in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and Hong Kong. The Alaska Zoo is not among them.

At least two AZA-accredited zoos, including the 550-acre North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, N.C., have said they could provide a new home for Maggie, who arrived at the zoo in 1983 as an infant.

The issue of her welfare is not new. Questions have been raised for years about the wisdom of keeping elephants in Anchorage, where temperatures can dip to 20 below zero in winter.

However, the debate intensified after the zoo’s other elephant, Annabelle, died of a chronic foot infection in 1997, leaving Maggie to a solitary existence. The AZA recommends that female elephants be kept in groups of three or more.

The AZA would be willing to arrange for Maggie’s transfer to another zoo, Butler said.

The zoo announced in August that Maggie would be staying in Alaska, but improvements would be made. They included putting a softer material over the concrete flooring in the elephant house, installing a training wall

, increasing the time elephant handlers spend with her and getting her in shape through the use of the treadmill.