OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1998:

Bill Blogg, 54, died of cancer on September
21 in Tiburon, California. Born in Australia, Blogg
qualified for the 1968 Australian Olympic track and
field team, but instead followed his father into a career
with Gestetner Corporation, a maker of printing equipment.
Transferred to the U.S. in 1974, Blogg married
his wife Tamara in 1979. One day in late 1991, Tamara
told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “while shopping for cat
food, we saw a sign asking us to help feed the cats
under the Golden Gate Bridge. We were both shocked
that cats lived there. We called and were shown eight
colonies totalling about 80 cats. We organized feeders,
trapped, took kittens, and founded the Cat Caring
Connection. We quickly found that it was nearly
impossible to find people willing to bottle-feed kittens
and stay up 24 hours a day for weeks. There were times
we had 40 kittens, all on a different schedule. Besides
me, Bill left our own 36 cats plus over 1,000 cats whom
we fostered and thousands more who were rescued due
to his efforts.” Said San Francisco SPCA president
Richard Avanzino, “I think Bill was a fabulous human
being––he exemplified a spirit which those of us who
love animals cherish. He and Tamara were belittled and
demeaned by some other animal groups who didn’t
believe in what they were doing, but they were willing
to commit everything they had to save lives.”

Myrtle Kelly, circa 80, died August 23 in
Rupert, Idaho, where she was known as the “Zoo
Lady” for her multi-species animal collections. The
Spokane Spokesman-Review recalled that in 1993
“authorities hauled away 51 truckloads and 21 dumpsters
full of cages, coops, and manure” from Kelly’s
home on one occasion, and limited her to keeping just
10 dogs, five cats, a badger, and a skunk, but found
her in violation of the limit “less than a month later.”

Kim Southworth, 49, a Citibank executive,
died on August 3 in Manhattan, leaving a $200,000
trust fund for the care of her cat, Ming, age 5. The
remainder of the money is to pass to Ming’s caretaker,
Humberto Rupet of Jersey City, N.J., either after 15
years or when Ming dies.

Ken Norris, 74, died on August 16,
soon after finishing the first draft of a book
called Mountain Time. Originally a herpetologist,
Norris joined Marineland of the Pacific
as founding curator in 1953, where he directed
studies which confirmed the ability of dolphins
to “see” by echolocation. Earning a PhD in
zoology from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography,
Norris taught at UCLA, 1959-1968.
During these years he produced the first scientific
description of the vaquita, a small endangered
whale native to the Gulf of California.
In 1965 Norris founded the California Natural
Reserve System, which has protected more
than 120,000 acres of wildlife habitat. Norris
was founding science director at the Oceanic
Institute in Hawaii, 1968-1971. In 1972 he
became one of the chief authors of the Marine
Mammal Protection Act. Thereafter, until
retirement in 1990, he taught environmental
studies at the University of California in Santa
Cruz; cofounded the Joseph M. Long Marine
Laboratory; and directed the Center for
Coastal Marine Studies, now called the
Institute of Marine Sciences. His 1992 book
Dolphin Days: The Life & Times of the
Spinner Dolphin won the 1992 John Burroughs
Medal for best book about natural history.
Recalled biologist Dawn Goley, of Humboldt
State University, “Norris thought dolphins
were magical and mystical. But he thought
that of bats, lizards, and other animals, too.”

Steven V. Ruggeri, 49, cofounder
of the Rhode Island Animal Rights Coalition
and former wildlife director for Friends of
Animals, died unexpectedly at home in
Portsmouth, Rhode Island, on September 23.
Recalled his sister, Pamela Pelletier, to
Soljane Martinez of the Providence Journal
B u l l e t in, “Anything most people would poison,
Steve would feed. He’s the reason why
all our neighbors are vegetarian.”

Charles Swart, 25, a final-year
nature conservation student at the Mangosuthu
Technikon college in Durban, South Africa,
was killed and partially eaten by an elderly
leopard on August 25, whom wardens shot at
the scene. Taking 12 tourists on his first night
wildlife observation drive at Kruger National
Park, Swart was reportedly pounced after he
parked on a bridge to allow them to take photos,
then walked backward into the darkness,
checking the road with a flashlight.

Kathleen Hanabury, 44, died of
breast cancer on August 19 in Boston. The
Boston Globe remembered her as “an attorney
who specialized in animal rights cases, a vegetarian
activist, a former director of the South
Shore Humane Society who worked with the
Quincy Animal League to improve the lot of
animals in circuses and to ban leghold traps.”

Daniel Deforges, 55, a bear handler
since age 17 with the Moscow, Zavatta,
and Medrano circuses, was killed September 3
at his farm near St. Etienne-sur-Reyssouze,
France, when he fell while feeding Kaline and
Olga, a pair of Russian/American brown bear
hybrids. Kaline reportedly attacked first.
When Deforges shouted “Help!”, Olga
pounced too. Deforges had considered having
the bears killed due to aggressive behavior,
but procrastinated. Police later shot them both.

Carter Faust, 83, died of cancer on
September 3 in San Rafael, California. A
high school teacher for 26 years, Faust founded
the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory at
Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands, where he
was first to document fall raptor migratory patterns
and was a volunteer naturalist for the
Audubon Society and National Park Service.

David Chain, 24, of Austin Texas,
active with Earth First! for about two years,
was killed on September 17 when an unidentified
logger felled a Douglas fir on top of him
near Grizzly Creek, California. Chain and
nine other protesters were trying to stop a cut
by Pacific Lumber in a part of the Headwaters
Forest slated for preservation. Chain’s death
came one day before California governor Pete
Wilson signed a bill appropriating the state’s
share of the $495 million cost of acquiring the
land and timber rights. The federal government
and private groups are to put up the rest.

Alex, 16 months, a Siberian tiger
born at the St. Louis Zoo, died from an apparent
adverse response to sedation on September
21 while being trucked to the Seneca Zoo in
Rochester, New York.

Apache, an appaloosa police horse
on duty in Birmingham, Alabama, for nearly
20 years, was killed on September 16 when he
spooked backward into the path of a truck.

Aurora, 7, peregrine falcon mother
of 19 young atop the Rhodes Tower in
Columbus, Ohio, died September 12 of a fungal
infection at the University of Minnesota
Raptor Center, after treatments at the Ohio
State University Raptor Rehabilitation Center
failed. Her reproductive success contributed
greatly to the removal of peregrine falcons
from the Endangered Species List earlier this
year. Her lifelong mate Bandit is expected to
find another partner next spring.

Bad Boy, 14 months, a cage-reared
California condor who was released into the
Los Padres National Forest in September 1997,
died at the Los Angeles Zoo on August 9 of
possible complications from a gunshot wound
discovered on May 20.

 

Bathsheba, 41, one of the oldest
female lowland gorillas in captivity, apparently
choked to death on regurgitated food during
the night of September 3-4––a cause of death
common to humans, but never before reported
in gorillas. Arriving at the Columbus Zoo in
1988, after transfer from the Cheyenne
Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs,
Bathsheba distinguished herself as a surrogate
mother for infant gorillas whose biological
mothers didn’t properly care for them.

Chicory, 13, a young lowland
gorilla who had apparently fully recovered
from an unprecedented operation to remove a
brain tumor in December 1994, died suddenly
on August 22. A post mortem discovered a
new tumor on the opposite side of his head,
but could not determine the cause of death.

Deputy Freddy, 19, the goldfish
mascot of the U.S. Marshals Service since
Marshals Service spokesperson Bill Dempsey
bought him for ten cents in 1979, died on
August 13 at the service headquarters from a
microbial infection which resisted antibiotics.

Griz, 8, an orphaned grizzly resident
at the Wildlife Images Rehabilitation &
Education Center in Grants Pass, Oregon,
since a train damaged one of his eyes and
killed his mother in 1990, died on August 9 of
apparent unshakeable grief over the disappearance
two months earlier of a stray tabby cat he
began giving a share of his food after the cat––
then a starving kitten––wandered into his cage
several years earlier. Griz had already been
depressed by the death of Wildlife Images
founder Dave Siddon from cancer in late 1996.
“Everyone was a basket case around here for a
few weeks afterward,” Siddon’s son Dave
said in announcing Griz’s death on August 27.
“Everyone was in love with that bear.” The
younger Dave Siddon succeeded his father as
Wildlife Images director.

Houdini, 7, a black Labrador handled
by police sergeant Larry Roberts of Ponce
Inlet, Florida, died on August 3 from heat
stress when the air conditioner in Roberts’
cruiser failed. Roberts had left the cruiser
parked with the engine and air conditioner on,
as per standard practice, while inside the station
doing paperwork on a case.

Jioni , 10, a black rhino, died on
September 23 en route from a temporary loan
to The Wilds animal park in Zanesville, Ohio,
to newly built quarters at the Columbus Zoo,
his home since 1989. Born at the San Diego
Wild Animal Park, Jioni was one of fewer
than 3,000 black rhinos left in the world. His
mate Kulinda Kifaru survived the trip.

Kartiko, 8, a Sumatran orangutan
resident at the Toronto Zoo, died on August 5
from respiratory failure, two days after falling
into a moat during a fight with four other
orangs over cookies illegally thrown into the
habitat by visitors. Seeing Kartiko panic and
go underwater, former lifeguard and competitive
swimmer Nick Lezetc, 28, got permission
from zookeeper Rick Vos to dive in and
pull Kartiko from the deepest part of the water,
after Vos was unable to lift him out with a net.
Lezetc’s girlfriend, vet tech Stephanie
Wilkinson, 22, restarted Kartiko’s breathing,
but he never regained consciousness.

Kongo, 33, father of Pattycake, the
first gorilla born in captivity, died on August
16 at the Gulf Breeze Zoo, soon after mating
with the Gulf Breeze gorilla Rwanda.
Belonging to the Bronz Zoo, Kongo had lived
at the Memphis Zoo on loan for some time
before a June 9 transfer to Gulf Breeze.

Make Me Happy, 17, an English
thoroughred belonging to Elaine Croft of
Gowers Corner, Florida, died in early August
of colic, said to be a post partum complication
of foaling a rare set of twins, Thelma and
Louise. Twins occur in horses only about once
in 10,000 births.

Mohawk, 31, the last American
black bear at the Toledo Zoo, was euthanized
due to abdominal cancer on August 3. Her
cage mate Ben, who arrived with her in 1971,
died in February 1997.

Mona Apple, 31, an appaloosa
therapy horse donated to Free Spirit Riders
Inc. of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, by Scott and
Barb Sebnitz of Plymouth, Wisc., in 1990,
died in August, five months after she became
the first horse elected to the Wisconsin
Veterinary Medical Association Hall of Fame.

Rex, 13, a King Charles cavalier
spaniel whom former U.S. president Ronald
Reagan received as a 1985 Christmas gift,
died on August 31 of a chronic heart condition.
Named after former White House chief usher
Rex Scouten, and dubbed the Oval Office
“guard dog,” Rex spent most of his life at
Reagan’s side.

Roy, 10, the German shepherd who
was first canine deputy for the Anne Arundel
County Sheriff’s Department in Maryland,
was euthanized in September due to cancer.
Handled by Deputy Fred Charles Jr., Roy
played a bit part in the NBC police drama
H o m i c i d e, and provided security for celebrities
including Pope John Paul II, actor Bruce
Willis, U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter, George
Bush, and Bill Clinton, and Baltimore Orioles
infielder Cal Ripken Jr., as Ripken challenged
and eventually broke Lou Gehrig’s record for
most consecutive games played.

Tshokwane, one of the biggest and
oldest bull elephants at Kruger National Park,
South Africa, was found dead in early
September of wounds apparently suffered in
combat with another bull.