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MONTH: November/December 2007
More heat on zoos to end elephant exhibits after Maggie leaves Alaska
SAN ANDREAS, Calif.-- The long-awaited relocation of the lone Alaska Zoo elephant from Anchorage to the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary near San Andreas, California was completed on November 1, 2007 without complications.
Maggie, 25, had been alone at the Alaska Zoo since the December 1997 death of her companion, Annabelle--with whom Maggie reputedly did not get along.
Annabelle, 33, died from complications of a chronic foot ailment common to elephants who spend most of their lives standing on hard surfaces. A similar fate was widely predicted for Maggie, who arrived at the Alaska Zoo from Kruger National Park in South Africa in 1983. Her family had been shot in a cull.
The Alaskan climate obliged Maggie to spend most of her time indoors. In California, "By mid-morning, Maggie was swinging her trunk around her new barn, checking out the unfamiliar sights and sounds," wrote Megan Holland of the Anchorage Daily News. "By mid-afternoon, she was sunbathing, eating green grass, and chasing birds. On the sanctuary's webcam, viewers watched other African elephants meander up to a fence that separated them from Maggie. By late afternoon, Maggie was walking up close to them, even raising her trunk over the fence, seemingly to touch them."
Retired television game show host Bob Barker donated $750,000 to fund the relocation--$400,000 for immediate expenses, the rest for longterm care.
Zoo directors around the world are watching to see what becomes of the Alaska Zoo without a resident elephant. The zoo was built around the elephant exhibit, and although it has many other exotic animals, including camels and Himalayan snow leopards, Maggie was the animal visitors were most interested in seeing.
The Alaska Zoo had reportedly spent about $1.3 million to try to improve her quality of life, but the American Zoo Association nonetheless recommended in early 2005 that she should be relocated to a mainland zoo, where she could have companions. However, the AZA wanted her to become part of a captive breeding program. She will not be bred at PAWS.
Thirteen U.S. zoos, including those in Detroit, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York, have either closed elephant exhibits in recent years or have announced plans to close them when the elephants they now have either die or can be relocated to more appropriate habitats.
Maggie was the third zoo elephant to be moved to a sanctuary in 2007, and the second to go to PAWS, following Ruby, 46, the last African elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo. PAWS also received the last elephants from the San Francisco Zoo and the Detroit Zoo, in March and April 2005.
The PAWS elephant collection also includes seven Asian elephants. The two most recent arrivals, Nicholas and Gypsy, arrived in April 2007 as part of the final dissolution of the Hawthorn Corporation, a circus elephant rental, training, and boarding company operated for 50 years by John Cuneo, 76, of Richmond, Illinois. Cuneo had agreed in 2004 to settle 47 alleged violations of the U.S. federal Animal Welfare Act by divesting of his 16 elephants, but placing Nicholas and Gypsy proved particularly difficult because their history included exposure to tuberculosis.
Actor Robert Culp and real estate agent Aaron Leider in August 2007 sued the Los Angeles Zoo and the city of Los Angeles to try to block construction of a new $40 million elephant exhibit, scheduled to open in November 2009.
While the Los Angeles Zoo no longer has African elephants, it still has one Asian elephant bull, and according to zoo public relations and marketing director Jason Jacobs, is "committed" to keeping elephants.
"We want them to close the existing exhibits, acquire no more elephants and spend the money more wisely," pro bono attorney David Casselman told Los Angeles Times staff writer Carla Hall.
Of the six acres set aside for the new elephant exhibit, only 3.6 acres will actually be elephant habitat.
Older U.S. zoo elephant habitats are seldom larger than one acre. Most are measured in square feet rather than in parts of acres. Among newer habitats, the Oakland Zoo now offers four African elephants about five acres. The Sedgwick County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas plans to open a 3.6-acre habitat in 2009 that will house seven elephants. The Denver Zoo is adding a 10-acre elephant exhibit costing $52 million.
Because elephants have bred notoriously poorly in zoos, the Sedgewick County Zoo, Denver Zoo, and eight other major zoos in March 2007 announced that they would collaborate to acquire the 330-acre Riddle's Elephant & Wildlife Sanctuary, near Quitman, Arkansas, and convert it into a breeding, research, and holding facility called the National Elephant Sanctuary.
Operated by former zoo elephant managers Scott and Heidi Riddle since 1991, Riddle's Elephant & Wildlife Sanctuary has financially struggled, with a cumulative operating deficit of more than $41,000 from 2003 through 2005. From 1994 to 2005 the sanctuary hosted Riddles' International School for Elephant Management, which taught techniques --including use of electroshock--that were widely regarded as outmoded and unnecessarily violent.
The National Elephant Sanctuary expected to take over the facilities in mid-2007, but Scott Riddle, 64, cautioned Cathy Frye of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that the $3.7 million sale of the property was "still in the discussion stages. Nothing is a done deal." Almost a year after the National Elephant Sanctuary on December 27, 2006 signed a letter of intent to buy Riddle's Elephant & Wildlife Sanctuary, nothing further about the transaction had been announced.