From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:
Human obituaries

Theodore Andre Monod, 98, a leading expert on the ecology of the Sahara desert, died on December 21 in Versailles, France. “A pacifist and ardent defender of animal rights, who opposed bullfighting and hunting, Dr. Monod was also a vegetarian who never touched alcohol or tobacco,” recalled Paul Lewis of The New York Times. “A member of the French Academy of Sciences and a professor at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, Dr. Monod discovered and gave his name to some 30 new species of plant and insect life, about 50 crustaceans, and several fish.” Monod discovered the neolithic skeleton in Mali known to science as Asselar Man in 1925, encouraged the French Resistance during World War II with anti-Nazi broadcasts from Senegal, and collaborated with Belgian physicist Auguste Picard in deep-sea exploration during the 1950s.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

David Brower, 88, died on July 5
at his lifelong home in Berkeley, California.
Brower was a boyhood friend of longtime
San Francisco Zoo benefactor Carroll SooHoo.
After graduating from Berkeley High
School together in 1928 they remained in
touch until Soo-Hoo died in 1998. Joining
the Sierra Club in 1933, Brower was elected
to the board in 1941, and was hired as the
organization’s first executive director in
1952. By the time he resigned in 1969, he
had boosted the membership from 2,000 to
77,000, but was best known for activism in
the spirit of founder John Muir, 1838-1914.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Sakhi, a 13-month-old tigress, was
tranquilized and skinned as the alleged climax
of a 108-day series of tantric rituals on the
night of October 5 at the Nehru Zoological
Park in Hyderabad, India. The crime coincided
with the last day of the annual festival of
Kali, the Hindu blood-goddess. Most Hindus
eschew animal sacrifice, but blood sacrifice is
central to Kali-worship. Indian prime minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee interrupted his recovery
from knee surgery to demand an investigation,
and contributed to a reward fund for apprehension
of the killers, who remained at large.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Mary Warner, almost 90, died
recently at her home in Berryville, Virginia.
Originally from Minnesota, Warner won her
first reputation in animal protection by tracking
down horse thieves. She began investigating
dog and cat theft, she recalled in 1992,
only after she and her husband retired to
Virginia in 1974. “We finally got away from
the horse thieves,” she said, “and then our
dog was stolen, right out of our yard.”
Warner responded by founding Action-81, an
anti-pet theft advocacy group named for I-81,
the truck route used by Appalachian bunchers
to haul dogs to laboratories along the
Atlantic seaboard. For the rest of her life
Warner gathered pet theft reports, lobbied
animal protection groups to act on pet theft,
and hounded her elected representatives.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000:

Misty II, 14, last grandfilly of
Misty of Chincoteague, and the only one with
the same color and markings, died from cancer
on August 24 at the farm of Keith and
Kendy Allen in Manheim, Pennsylvania. Her
remains were returned to Chincoteague Island,
Virginia, to be buried at the newly opened
Chincoteague Pony Center. The first Misty
rode to fame with the success of the children’s
book Misty of Chincoteague, by the late
Marguerite Henry. Misty of Chincoteague
made her one of the most successful writers of
horse stories ever, having already sold more
than a million copies by 1961, when it became
a hit film. Henry produced two sequels:
Stormy, Misty’s Foal (1963), about the mother
of Misty II, and Misty’s Twilight ( 1992 ) ,
about the last days of Misty, who died in
1972. But Misty II did not inherit an easy life.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

Vigga, 23, a female orca whale captured
off Iceland in 1980, resident at Six Flags
Marine World in Vallejo, California, since
November 1991, died on August 14, reportedly
from a heart ailment. Vigga was the last
orca at Marine World; her longtime companion
Yaka died in October 1997.

Maria, 19, an Atlantic bottlenose
dolphin captured near Sarasota, Florida, and
brought to the West Edmonton Mall in 1985,
died at the mall on August 9. Three other dolphins
remain at the mall, but none will be
replaced when they die, said mall spokesperson
Travis Reynolds.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2000:

Usha Mehta, teacher-in-residence
at the Manibhavan Gandhi Memorial Trust in
Gandhi’s former Mumbai home, died on
August 11. Wrote her longtime friend Geeta
Mehta, “Her warmth of love and friendship
were not limited to humans. As a vegetarian
throughout her life, she had a compassionate
heart for animals, wild or domesticated,”
evident in a brief meeting with A N I M A L
PEOPLE at the Gandhi Memorial Trust during
December 1997. Among the last survivors
of Gandhi’s close associates, Mehta in
1942 organized children to help seek Indian
independence from Britain, and helped operate
the underground Indian National
Congress radio station. Recalled Geeta
Mehta, “Eventually she was arrested and sentenced
to four years imprisonment, during
which she was tortured so much that she permanently
lost her appetite for food.” She
went on to become head of the political science
department at the University of Bombay,
joining the Manibhavan Gandhi Memorial
Trust fulltime upon her retirement.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

John Aspinall, 74, died from cancer on June 29 in London. The illegitimate son of a British Army officer, born in India to a British mother, Aspinall had “two great loves––wild animals and gambling,” recalled BBC News. “He started gambling while a student at Oxford University,” following three years in the Royal Marines, the BBC continued. Added Warren Hoge of The New York Times, “On the day of his final exams, he feigned illness and went to the Gold Cup at Ascot instead. He consequently never earned a degree, but he did bet on the right horse and his professional life was launched.” Known for outrageously sexist and racist remarks, and for frequent expressions of general misanthropy, Aspinall nonetheless quickly befriended almost every animal or human he considered worth his while. He ran an ever-moving illegal gambling club from circa 1955 until a 1958 police raid nabbed so many well-connected players that the outcome was the legalization of casino games. With his winnings Aspinall acquired a Capuchin monkey, a tiger who killed a neighborhood dog during a 1957 walk, and two Himalayan bears. He then financed Howlett’s, his first zoo, with the profits from the Clermont Club, a high-toned casino he opened in 1962. He sold the Clermont Club in 1972, using the proceeds to start the 275- acre Port Lympne Zoo near Folkestone.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2000:

Ganesha, India’s oldest domesticated
elephant, whose age was variously estimated
at 72, 78, and 79, died on June 29 at the
Mysore Zoo. She was captured in 1948 for
then-Mysore Maharaja Sri Jayachamarajendra
Wodeyar. He donated her to the zoo in 1951.
Sukanta, 12, a white Bengal tiger,
on July 29 became the 13th tiger in less than a
month to die of uncertain cause at the Nandankanan
Zoo in Bhubaneswar. The deaths
brought an investigation by the Supreme Court
of India, expanding into a broader probe into
the deaths of 221 lions and 366 tigers at Indian
zoos and wildlife parks during the past five
years. The Nandankanan tiger deaths have
been variously blamed on the fly-carried bacterial
disease trypanosomiasis, bad food, and
bad veterinary drugs. The zoo has bred more
than 300 tigers in captivity since 1967, 123 of
them white, and still has 43, including 18
white tigers.

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