CONCERN: The elephant was down seven hours Wednesday, the second incident this week.
Alaska Zoo officials are baffled why the zoo's elephant, Maggie, lay down early Wednesday for a second time in four days and could not get up.
The incidents will likely move up the zoo board's decision on whether to keep Alaska's lone elephant or ship the facility's popular attraction out of state, said board president Dick Thwaites. "We are considering what's best for Maggie," he said late Wednesday.
Two dozen firefighters used straps and a winch tied to a tow truck to lift the 8,000-pound pachyderm after zoo staff discovered her lying on her right side on the concrete floor in her enclosure early Wednesday morning. It was a repeat of a hazardous incident Sunday that lasted as long as 19 hours for the elephant.
Zoo director Pat Lampi said Maggie was down for six or seven hours on Wednesday before the tow truck, designed to lift backhoes and multiton machinery, got the elephant back on her feet.
When an elephant is down for too long it can damage internal organs, muscles and the kidneys, veterinarians say.
The zoo speculated after Sunday's incident that cholic or a stomach ache may have weakened the elephant. But on Wednesday, Lampi said zoo vets had ruled that out. Blood tests showed nothing abnormal. More blood tests have been ordered, and the zoo is consulting with local and outside veterinarians to determine a diagnosis.
Nearly three years ago, the board made the controversial decision to keep Maggie in Alaska, and said they would revisit the question in August 2007. The health of the elephant will certainly be a topic at the next board meeting on June 13, Thwaites said.
The debate over whether the elephant belongs in Alaska has garnered national and international attention. Animal rights activists have lobbied for years for her retirement to a Lower 48 elephant sanctuary, where she can roam with other elephants in a warmer locale. The recent incidents have amplified the calls to move her.
At the urgings of local activists, the state's Department of Environmental Conservation along with the state's vet, Dr. Robert Gerlach, are monitoring Maggie's health. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also keeping abreast of all developments.
"This could be good or bad for Maggie," said Penelope Wells of the local group Friends of Maggie, which wants the elephant moved out of Alaska. "This could be a wake-up call, or at the same time she could be too weak to be moved."
Wells is also calling for more Outside elephant experts to be involved in Maggie's care.
At 25, Maggie is considered to be in the prime of her life. While older elephants in zoos have lain down and been unable to get up, they were much older than Maggie, said Dr. Susan Mikota, a veterinarian and director of research for Elephant Care International, which focuses on elephant health and conservation issues.
Mikota has not seen any of Maggie's medical files but said in a telephone interview from Tennessee she could be ill because of any number of dozens of reasons, including premature arthritis or malfunction of an organ.
Mikota said elephants sleep standing up, leaning against things and sometimes lying down. But they should always be able to get up, she said.
Zoo keepers had been keeping a 24-hour watch on the elephant since Sunday. But because she resumed her old habits of throwing around tires, pushing giant balls around her enclosure, on Tuesday night they reduced the monitoring to hourly checkups. But Wednesday morning, at 5 a.m., zoo staff found her lying down.
As with the Sunday incident, the elephant suffered minor abrasions and scraps from squirming on the concrete floor trying to get up.
On Wednesday, Lampi said the zoo is designing a sling to be placed near Maggie's unused treadmill -- which was built to help her exercise but which she has not adapted to -- to help her take weight off her legs. Slings have often been used to help ailing animals, Mikota said.
Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com.
