OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Edward Lowe, 75, inventor of
Kitty Litter, died October 4 in Sarasota,
Florida, from complications of surgery to
relieve pressure from a cerebral hemorrhage.
In January 1947, Lowe, a 27-year-old Navy
veteran, was working at his father’s sawdust
business in Cassopolis, Michigan. Their
customers were mostly factories and garages
that used sawdust to sop up oil and grease
spills. As oil-soaked sawdust could become a
fire hazard, they had also begun to sell kilndried
granulated clay as a more costly alternative.

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:

Howard Elliott Winn, 69, died August 13 while gardening at his home in North
Kingstown, Rhode Island. Best known for pioneering acoustic research on whale songs,
Winn was author of more than 120 scientific papers altogether, pertaining to birds and fish as
well as marine mammals. “He was scientific director of the Cetacean and Turtle Assessment
Program,” remembered colleague Robert Kenney, “which was a landmark study in 1978-
1982 of the whales, dolphins, and sea turtles off the northeastern United States. Much of his
whale research over the last 15 years focused on the right whale, the most endangered whale
species. He was the lead investigator of the South Channel Ocean Productivity Experiment, a
large program which significantly advanced our understanding of right whale habitat requirements,and served as a member of the national right whale recovery team. In recent years he was conducting a continuing study of the ecology and behavior of coral reef fish in Belize, Central America.” Earning a B.A. in biology at Bowdoin College in 1948, and an M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, 1950 and 1955, Winn taught for 10 years at the
University of Maryland before joining the University of Rhode Island as professor of
oceanography in 1965. Winn served as president of the Animal Behavior Society in 1966.
He is survived by his wife, Susan Hammen-Winn, and four sons.
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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1995:

Ed Piukowsky, 52, died of a heart
attack on July 9, 2005, at home in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania. The son of a police dog han-
dler, Piukowsky and his wife Bonnie Lanzen-
dorfer Piukowsky founded the Jollyman
Animal Sanctuary in 2002. Blairsville
Dispatch reporter Jeff Himler in April 2005
listed the residents as “16 dogs, 50 cats, six
chickens, three goats, a dozen each of geese
and ducks, two peafowl, a rabbit and a par-
rot.” Recalled Dogs Deserve Better anti-
chaining group founder Tammy Grimes, “Ed
was very supportive of me and my work, and
had me speak at their fundraisers each of the
past three years. The first time was my first
time ever speaking, and I was so nervous I
thought I’d die. I spoke for a whole 30 sec-
onds, but it was enough to get me past the
point of trying. He told me each year, ‘See, I
knew you were going to go far, didn’t I tell
you that?’ He was so proud of me and the
progress we have made.”

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1995:

Morarji Desai, 99, former prime minister of India, died April 9 in Bombay.
Current Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao memorialized Desai in a joint session of the
Indian Parliament as “one of the most devoted disciples of Mahatma Gandhi, an able adminis-
trator and one of the finest human beings,” who often accompanied Gandhi to jail during the
struggle for Indian independence. Shirley McGreal of the International Primate Protection
League remembered Desai warmly for a different reason. “In 1977,” she recalled, “IPPL
amassed documents about the U.S. use or misuse of imported Indian rhesus monkey use in mili-
tary experiments,” in violation of the terms of a 20-year-old export agreement. Desai had been
elected prime minister in 1977, and McGreal knew that, like Gandhi, “Desai was a lifelong
vegetarian [in fact, a strict vegan] and animal lover.” She appealed to him. On December 3,
1977, Desai’s government barred monkey exports. “He saved a species and hundreds of thou-
sands of individual animals from suffering and death in foreign laboratories,” McGreal said.
“Powerful users exerted heavy pressure on Desai. He stood firm,” as have his successors. “In
an attempt at historical revisionism,” McGreal continued, “claims were made by U.S. scientists
that the Indian ban resulted from conservation concerns and the dwindling numbers of rhesuses.
IPPL contacted Desai, by then retired, for clarification. In a handwritten letter dated April 16,
1985, Desai stated, ‘You are quite correct in saying that I banned the export of monkeys on a
humanitarian basis and not because the number was lessening. I believe in preventing cruelty to
all living beings in any form.'” But the monkeys had become scarce. “Later,” McGreal con-
firmed, “a survey by the Zoological Survey of India determined that there were only 200,000
rhesus monkeys left in India. The trade had taken a heavy toll. The teeming millions of former
days had disappeared. Those monkeys left owe their lives and freedom to Morarji Desai. They
are his living monument.”

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1995:

Choi Hui-bok, 23, of Pusan,
South Korea, allegedly killed herself on April
12 when her husband Chung Hae-soo came
home drunk after eating dog meat, which
many Koreans believe to be a sexual tonic.
She had tried repeatedly to get him to give it
up. “We fought over the matter and I went to
another room to sleep,” Chung told police.
“When I woke up she was dead, dangling
from a window frame by a necktie.”

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1995:

Veterinarian James Alfred
Wright, 78, known to the world as author
James Herriot, died of prostate cancer on
February 23 in Thirsk, Yorkshire. Deciding
to become a vet at age 13, Wright studied
small animal medicine, but under financial
duress became junior partner in an agricultural
practice in Thirsk, where he continued to treat
animals until 1990. Adopting as pseudonym
the name of a Scots soccer goalie, Wright
wrote unsuccessfully, as a hobby, for many
years before producing two successful vol-
umes of reminiscences of his veterinary career
at age 53. Sales were initially slow, but they
inspired a hit BBC television series, even
more popular in the U.S. than in Britain, and
combined into a single volume, retitled A l l
Creatures Great And Small, became a best-
seller. Wright went on to produce six more
books, including Every Living Thing, which
at his death had been on The New York Times
bestseller list for 22 weeks.

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:

Naturalist Gerald Durrell, 70, a
longtime resident of St. Helier, France, died
January 30 in London of complications after a
liver transplant. Younger brother of the late
novelist Lawrence Durrell, Gerald was actu-
ally the more prolific author, producing 37
titles including many best-sellers, from T h e
Overloaded Ark (1952) to The Aye-Aye And I
(1993). My Family And Other Animals
(1956), a memoir of his boyhood on the
Greek island of Corfu, influenced a genera-
tion of young readers including the editor of
ANIMAL PEOPLE, who got a copy as a
birthday gift at age 8 and read it to tatters.
Born in Jamshedpur, India, Durrell’s first
word was reputedly “zoo.” He joined the
Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire, England––

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1995:

Brigid Brophy, 66, British author and feminist, died August 7 in London after a
12-year battle with multiple sclerosis. Best known for her successful crusade to require British
libraries to pay royalties to authors whenever their books are checked out, leading to the pas-
sage of the 1979 Public Lending Rights Act, Brophy was a vegetarian and animal advocate
throughout her adult life. Her first novel, Hackenfeller’s Ape (1954) attacked vivisection. “I
am the very opposite of an anthropomorphiser,” she wrote in Don’t Never Forget. “I don’t
hold animals superior to or even equal to humans. The whole case for behaving decently to
animals rests on the fact that we are the superior species. We are the species uniquely capable
of imagination, rationality and moral choice––and that is precisely why we are under the
obligation to recognize and respect the rights of animals.” Later, Brophy added,
“‘Sentimentalist’ is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel,
thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to be cruel, which it isn’t.” In all,

Brophy’s aphorisms on animal rights occupy six pages of The Extended Circle, Jon Wiynne-
Tyson’s “Commonplace Book of Animal Rights.”

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OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1995:

Susan de Treville, 44, board mem-
ber and cofounder of The Mountain Lion
Foundation, also founder of the California
Wildlife Conservancy, died in October after a
prolonged struggle against brain cancer. A
San Diego resident, she left two young daugh-
ters, Joy Wallen and Amanda Sitton. Wrote
colleague Sharon Negri, “She was a skilled
biologist with a passion and love for animals.
From 1972 through 1976, Susan and Larry
Sitton conducted lion telemetry research in
Hunter Liggett, a rugged, mountainous range
in Big Sur, and were the first in California to
study range sizes and male/female lion interac-
tions. While big cats were her first love,
Susan also published two children’s coloring
books, worked on coastal and water quality
issues with the Environmental Defense Fund
and the Coastal Conservancy, and managed
her own consulting business. Susan’s two
daughters have scattered her ashes in mountain
lion terrain in the Hunter Liggett study area.”

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