2024-12-23

I’m scared of it too

From the National Geographic (worth clicking through, the photo is priceless):

You can lead an elephant to a treadmill, but you can’t make her walk. That’s the lesson zookeepers are learning in Anchorage, Alaska, where they have been struggling to get the zoo’s resident elephant to exercise.

Zookeepers have used apples, carrots, birch-tree branches—and, yes, peanuts—to try to coax her onto the contraption. But so far she’s gotten just three of her feet on the belt before backing off.

Still, Maggie’s keepers are confident that she will come around in time.

“We have to be patient. Nobody has ever done this before,” trainer Beth Foglesong told the Anchorage Daily News.

“The instructional video didn’t come with [the treadmill].”