Height: 8' 6"
Weight: 7,420 lbs.
Favorite Food: Bamboo

Queenie was born in Asia in 1959. Like so many other circus elephants, Queenie was captured from the wild at a young age, separated from her family herd and shipped to America for training and performing in the circus. She was purchased by Benson’s Wild Animal Farm in New Hampshire along with Liz, and in 1987 they were both sold to the Hawthorn Corporation, where they spent the next 19 years being leased out to circuses.

As a result of USDA prosecutions against the Hawthorn Corporation for violations of the Animal Welfare act involving inadequate care and mistreatment of its elephants, Queenie was sent to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee along with nearly all the other members of her circus family.

On February 2, 2006, Queenie became the seventeenth resident of The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. Traveling with Liz, they were the third and fourth of eight circus elephants to arrive in the "Caravan To Freedom" rescue. Queenie had become very close friends with Lottie and Minnie during her years at Hawthorn. Because her companions departed for Tennessee two days before her, when Queenie arrived, she was overjoyed — and probably greatly relieved — to find Lottie and Minnie there to greet her! The threesome would get to spend the rest of their carefree retirement years together.

Queenie enjoyed the company of all of the elephants and had a very easy-going personality, but remained best friends with Minnie and Lottie. Queenie was the first to drink from the water troughs out in the habitat and liked to spend the early morning hours playing with the barn's rubber door flaps.

On March 29, 2008, Queenie passed away quietly in the Sanctuary habitat she loved. She had not been ill, nor had she shown any signs of distress.