Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

Maggie is an elephant, wild-born in Zimbabwe who was living at a zoo in Anchorage, Alaska, where the temperature can drop to minus 7 deg Celsius / 20 deg F in winter.  Consequently Maggie spent about five months of every year either shut in the concrete and steel of her indoor house or was reluctant to venture outside.

Maggie’s mother was killed in a cull in Zimbabwe where, typically, the babies witness the terror and carnage and slaughter of their families.  The traumatised infants are tied to the bodies of their dead mothers, until they can be manhandled into vehicles and sent off to holding centres.  They are then sold to zoos around the world.

After a brief time in New York, Maggie arrived in Anchorage in 1983.  She was to provide company for Annabelle, the zoo’s solitary Asian elephant.  Sadly, in 1997, Annabelle was euthanased because of foot rot and Maggie has lived alone since then.  Elephants have a similar life-span to humans and at 24-year old Maggie could live for perhaps another 30-40 years.  Campaigners and concerned individuals from around the world wanted to ensure that those years were not spent confined in Alaska Zoo.

But now we have wonderful news!  Maggie the elephant has left behind snowy Alaska and has arrived safely at her new home in California.  She only arrived November 2nd so we don't yet have a lot of details, but it seems everything is going really well so far.

Apparently her flight was uneventful and she remained calm - the days spent training her to get used to her travelling crate obviously paid off.  She arrived at the sanctuary of the Performing Animal Welfare Society at around 6.50am. She backed out of her crate, sniffed the air and slowly started walking toward the barn.  She seemed to become aware of the morning sun on her back and stopped to take it in for a few moments.  She was given words of encouragement and fruit by members of the PAWS team and Alaska Zoo officials and then she went to the barn where all the elephants spend the night.  After a few minutes, she was back out in the sun.  She couldn't seem to get enough of it!

As Maggie continued to remain calm the team felt it would be safe to allow her to see the other African elephants.  So, she was brought into the yard attached to the 75 acres of pastures and woodland that make up the 'African habitat'.  There on the other side of the fence were PAWS' four resident African elephants.  As soon as they saw Maggie there was much excitement: trumpeting, spinning around and rubbing on the fencing.  Maggie ran half way towards them, seemingly equally excited, and then ran back again.   She hadn’t seen another elephant for 10 years, since her companion Annabelle had to be euthanased after collapsing in 1997.  It’s not surprising Maggie was unsure of these noisy strangers.   She spent the next few hours quietly foraging in the sunshine, away from the other elephants.  Later on in the afternoon she ran playfully towards them, trumpeting - and then ran back again!

At 6.30pm Maggie and the other elephants were brought into their own sections of the 20,000 square feet of barn where they spend the night and for their evening meal.  After the initial trumpets of excitement, calm soon settled through the barn.  Throughout the night Maggie and the others slept peacefully - well, peacefully apart from their snores.  Her new life has got off to a very encouraging start.

Many thanks to our Activators who wrote letters and emails to the zoo urging Maggie’s release.  Although it seemed to be her two collapses in the summer which eventually convinced the zoo to let her go, it is, without doubt, the unrelenting pressure from Maggie’s friends all over the world that ensured her plight remained high profile and stopped her from becoming another grim statistic.   In the USA more than half of the 46 elephants who died at accredited zoos since 2000 failed to meet their 40th birthday.  Let us hope 25 year old Maggie has many happy years ahead of her in her wonderful new home.