Air Force agrees to move elephant on C-17

Air Force agrees to move elephant on C-17
By Bruce Rolfsen - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Oct 25, 2007 20:29:53 EDT

For a bunch of loadmasters, life will truly imitate art the day after Halloween, now that the Air Force has agreed to fly Maggie, a sick elephant, aboard a C-17 Globemaster from Alaska to California.

Consider it a tongue-in-cheek sequel to that 1995 movie “Operation Dumbo Drop,” starring Danny Glover. Those were Army guys, but the film was inspired by a 1968 special operations/goodwill mission that had U.S. troops ferry an elephant to a Vietnamese village for a sacred ceremony.

~snip~

The Alaska Zoo in Anchorage needs to move Maggie, an 8,000-pound pachyderm, to northern California, where Maggie will take up residence at an animal sanctuary. At 27, the zoo says the African elephant — said to be Alaska’s only elephant — is having some health troubles, and zookeepers think she’ll be better off farther south.

The zoo asked the Air Force if it would fly the mission, and the service said yes Oct. 25. The Air Force will fly Maggie from Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, to Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Elmendorf is home to the 3rd Wing and a C-17 squadron.

During the flight, Maggie will be packed inside a 10,000-pound, cagelike crate measuring 18 feet long, 8 feet wide and 10 feet tall — small enough to fit inside a C-17.

The Performing Animal Welfare Society, which runs the sanctuary near San Andreas, Calif., will pay all of the Air Force’s costs, an Air Force statement said. Estimates put the bill around $200,000.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/10/airforce_elephant_c17_071024w/



uhc comment: Read more about this $202,300,000 (in 1998 dollars) aircraft --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-17_Globemaster_III

'Hope she makes the trip without problems and lives out a long future in elephant happiness.