Friends of Maggie - Background

**Her Background**

***You can take an elephant out of the wild, but you cannnot take the wild out of an elephant.***

Maggie is not a domesticated animal, she is a wild caught African elephant.
If her family had not been killed in a culling operation, she would still be with them today.
		A brief history In 1983, the Alaska Zoo acquired Maggie, a baby orphan elephant originating from Zimbabwe, to provide its solitary Asian female elephant, Annabelle, company. The two were housed together until Annabelle's premature death from foot rot in 1997. Since then, Maggie has lived alone. She is 24 years old and should, barring an accident, live another 40 years.

An African Elephant Family Close contact is an essential part of their lives © C. Moss		Elephants live in complex, multi-tiered social systems with the family unit at its core. Female elephants never live alone. They develop deep and lasting bonds and remain committed to their families for life. While the group is led by a matriarch, usually the oldest and wisest member, the key to success is that adult female elephants are exceptional team players. They possess good leadership, excellent communication, clear roles, cooperation, consensus building, respect for one another and skillful reconciliation.

Bringing up baby elephants is a family affair. They enjoy a long indulged, protected childhood and the relationship between mother elephants and their offspring has been described as "a non-stop touch-a-thon. The only "roof" this baby will ever know is the broad girth of her mother's underbelly.		© P. Granli

See what leading scientists are telling us about elephants in their natural habitat

The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/
The Elephant Listening Project http://birds.cornell.edu/
Amboseli Elephant Research Project www.elephanttrust.org/
Savanna Elephant Vocalization Project www.elephantvoices.org/