OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1999:

Michael “Rhino Man” Werikhe,
43, died on August 9 in Mombassa, Kenya,
“from injuries sustained in an assault by
gangsters three weeks ago,” The Nation o f
Nairobi reported. Werikhe in 1982 quit his
job with the Kenya Wildlife Service and
walked from Mombassa to Nairobi to protest
against rhino poaching. In 1985 he walked
1,250 miles across Uganda, Kenya, and
Tanzania, raising $54,000 for rhino help projects.
An 1,800-mile walk through western
Europe raised $1 million in 1988. In 1991
Werikhe raised additional funds with a 30-
city walking tour of the U.S. and Canada. His
walks earned a Goldman Environmental Prize
and a position on the Advisory Council to the
Rhino Trust. Between walks, he was a maintenance
supervisor at the Associated Vehicle
Assembly plant in Mombassa.

Jonathan Harusa, DVM, was
trampled on August 28 while helping to move
17 alleged rogue elephants from the Luwero
district of southern Uganda to Murchison
Falls National Park. Luwero officials had
threatened to shoot the elephants, who earlier
killed another man and wrecked a house.

Subhash Basavanneppa Bhendigeri,
52, a police officer at the Adoor station
in Hangal Taluk, Bangalore, India, died
on August 15 after being bitten twice by a
cobra. Bhendigeri was widely known for rescuing
snakes from roads and taking them to
safety. He left a wife and daughter.

Alan Clark, 71, died suddenly on
September 7 at home in Kent, England,
three months after excision of a brain tumor.
As a Conservative member of the British
Parliament 1974-1992, and from 1997 to his
death, Clark was known for his love of dogs
and support of animal protection.

John S. Gottschalk, 86, died at
home on August 13 in Arlington, Virginia.
Gottschalk helped shape U.S. wildlife management
policy in administrative stints with
the wildlife agencies of Indiana, Montana,
and Massachusetts; as head of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, 1964-1970; and later
as assistant director of the National Marine
Fisheries Service. He also held posts with the
American Fisheries Society, Natl. Wildlife
Federation, Audubon Naturalist Society, and
Intl. Assn. of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Bill Wewer, 52, recently died
from lymphatic cancer, according to the June
1999 edition of the Tom DeWeese Report, a
far-right newsletter published by the founder
of the American Policy Center, which
employs Wewer’s wife Kathleen Marquardt.
The item gave no specific date or place of
death. A tax lawyer long involved in direct
mail-based political ventures, which previously
brought two Congressional investigations
and a Justice Department reprimand,
Wewer formed the Doris Day Animal League
in 1986. He also was a contract attorney for
the 1990 March for the Animals, but left both
DDAL and the March staff in early 1990 to
join the anti-animal rights group Putting
People First, begun by Marquardt in 1989. A
columnist for Fur Age Weekly 1 9 9 0 – 1 9 9 1 ,
Wewer dropped from view after A N I M A L
P E O P L E editor Merritt Clifton exposed his
history in April 1991. Claiming to represent
Norwegian whalers and sealers as of
November 1992, PPF became Putting
Liberty First, then merged into APC. “Rick
Spill,” a name also used in 1986 by a person
who represented some of the political organizations
Wewer was associated with, surfaced
in 1993 as marine mammal consultant for the
Animal Welfare Institute. Resembling
Wewer, “Spill” co-founded the Cetacean
Freedom Network in 1994, and was central
in the splits that broke up the Sugarloaf
Dolphin Sanctuary rehab-for-release project
in 1995. “Spill” was especially closely associated
with then-Friends of Animals staffer
Ben White, who made more than a third of
the calls he billed to FoA in 1994-1996 to
“Spill.” Aware that ANIMAL PEOPLE suspected
he was Wewer, “Spill” abruptly left
AWI in May 1997. Wewer, who boasted in a
February 1997 fax to ANIMAL PEOPLE
that he was “moled into a movement organization,”
resurfaced soon afterward, practicing
law in Helena, Montana, where he was a
prominent supporter of wise-use Rep. Rick
Hill (R-Montana). From circa November
1997 on, Wewer represented the Humane
Society of Ventura County, California.

Gary Moberg, 58, died on August
13 from a heart attack. On the University of
California at Davis animal science faculty
since 1970, Moberg was recently named
director of the campus Center for Aquatic
Biology and Agriculture, where he was
studying stress among dolphins who were
netted by tuna fishers. “He was internationally
recognized as an expert on animal stress
and animal welfare,” said U.C. Davis department
of animal science chair Gary Anderson.