San Francisco - Alaska's only elephant, Maggie, arrived at her sunny new home in California Friday and was showing no ill effects from her 16 hour journey by truck and military transport plane, officials said. "She seems to love it here," Kim Gardner, an official at the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), told Deutsche Presse- Agentur, dpa. "She really likes that sunshine."
Maggie was airlifted from the Alaska Zoo after animal rights activists complained that life as the world's most northerly elephant was too lonely and cold for the Zimbabwean native.
The 3.6-tonne-pachyderm was moved from her chilly concrete home in Anchorage in a heated crate for a 5,000-kilometre flight aboard an Air Force C-17.
The 16-hour trip means she will now run free in a 40-hectare enclosure with seven other African elephants. Maggie has not enjoyed the company of other elephants since 1979, when Alaska's only other elephant died. Gardner said the elephants at PAWS were taking their time to introduce themselves, and though they grazed close to each other, they had not yet touched.
The story of the move dominated news in Alaska for the past week. Maggie was accompanied on the trip by two veterinarians, an animal behaviour expert, several handlers, zoo officials and a TV crew for a total entourage of two dozen.
Her favourite toys, including her hay basket and feeder balls, also travelled with her.
Maggie was transported to Alaska from Zimbabwe 25 years ago as a cub after the rest of her herd was culled.
