HUMAN OBITUARIES

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000:

H. Jay Dinshah, 66, who founded
the American Vegan Society in 1960 and
headed it ever since, assisted by his wife
Freya and other family members, died on
June 8 from a heart attack at the AVS office
in Malaga, New Jersey. Congenital heart
disease was reportedly common on both sides
of his family. Recalled S. Joseph
Hagenmayer of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
“Dinshah was raised as lacto-vegetarian from
birth and homeschooled by his parents, the
late Dinshah P. Ghadali and Irene Grace
Hoger Dinshah,” but became a strict vegan
after visiting a Philadelphia slaughterhouse at
age 23. “His ethic of reverence for life was
expounded through writings and essays and
crusades that took him around the world,”
Hagenmayer continued. “He helped organize
conventions, including the 1975 World
Vegetarian Congress at the University of
Maine in Orono, that played significant roles
in the development of the vegetarian and
vegan movements.” Dinshah was a secondgeneration
vegetarian crusader: Dinshah
Ghadali, an Indian-born Parsi mystic, physician,
lawyer, aviator, and inventor, gave up
hunting and meat-eating at age 18, and went
on to practice and advocate vegetarianism
until his death at 92.

Ghadali was ahead of
his time in criticism of tobacco, invention of
a stun-gun, and several automotive inventions,
but his credibility was impaired by the
alleged death from starvation of his premature
first child; the death of his second son from
tuberculosis, contracted in England while
Ghadali was crusading against vaccination in
Aden, Arabia; hunger, neglect, and a fatal
accident suffered by other children after
Ghadali settled in America; 18 months in
prison for allegedly transporting a minor
across state lines for immoral purposes; and
five years on probation for fraud in connection
with his operation of the “SpectroChrome
Institute,” which purported to heal
the sick with colored lights.
Dorothy Stewart, 71, of Nashville,
Indiana, was fatally mauled by as
many as 15 dogs on June 10 when as a censustaker
she tried to enumerate the residents
of the home of Yellowwood State Forest
inholders Joann Latvaitis, 37, and Wayne
Newton, 44. Both were charged with criminal
negligence, harboring dogs who had not
been immunized, and possession of marijuana.
Residents of the property had been
charged with allowing dogs to run at large in
1989, 1990, and 1994. “Stewart was no
stranger to dogs,” recalled Laura Lane of the
Bloomington Herald-Times. “She liked them,
and had several of her own, along with about
a dozen cats. She had a kind heart and was
known to take in strays.”
Jeff Jansen, 46, of Denver, died
on May 27 from a sleeping disorder, seven
days after saving the life of fellow Prairie
Wind Wild Animal Refuge volunteer Renee
Black by using a metal pole to pry open the
jaws of a tiger who had already mauled her
right arm so severely that it had to be amputated.
Two other volunteers––Kelli Henrikson
and Donnie Dillow––kept Black from
bleeding to death.
Luis Baptista, 58, curator of
ornithology and mammology at the California
Academy of Sciences in San Francisco since
1980, died on June 12 at his home in
Sebastopol, California. Born in Hong Kong,
Baptista made his chief contribution to science
in 1972, at the Max Planck Institute in
Munich, Germamy, by recognizing a basic
language in the sounds of the chaffinch. He
later decoded the sounds of many other bird
species. Baptista became controversial for
his restoration of captive-bred Socorro doves
to Socorro Island, south of Baja California,
which involved killing their predators. The
island became a biosphere preserve in 1994.
Ruth Harrison, 79, whose 1964
book Animal Machines brought factory farming
into the sphere of humane concern, died
on June 13 at her home in London.
Introduced by Silent Spring author Rachel
Carson, Animal Machines exposed intensive
confinement methods as applied to poultry,
veal calves, and pigs. According to longtime
friend Ann Cottrell Free, whose own newspaper
exposes were instrumental in winning
passage of the 1958 Humane Slaughter Act
(U.S.), “Harrison’s book caused a public outcry
and prompted an investigation by the
British Ministry of Agriculture. This eventually
brought the passage of a new law
addressing farm animal welfare, and the
establishment of the Farm Animal Welfare
council. It also inspired the Council of
Europe to set up a special commission on protecting
farm animals. More specifically,
Animal Machines led to outlawing veal
crates. And it drew attention to the dangers to
humans from eating meat laced with antibiotics,
which are given to factory-farmed animals
to reduce disease among them, and to
enhance growth and profits.” Harrison in
1986 received the Order of the British Empire
for her ongoing work to improve the lives of
farm animals. She also received top honors
from the Royal SPCA, Eurogroup on Animal
Welfare, and the British Veterinary
Association. A lifelong Quaker, Harrison
served in the Friends Ambulance Unit during
World War II, and worked to assist displaced
persons after the war. She was a longtime
vegetarian.
Thomas O. Miller, 67, veterinarian
at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson 1967-
1997, died at home in Tucson on May 21.
“He was the most compassionate man,”
recalled 27-year Reid Park zookeeper Gale R.
Ferrick. “Any time we had to put any of our
animals down, even our own dogs, he would
cry with us. His ability and methods for treating
animals were wonderful. We loved him.
Stuart Innes, seal biologist for
Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Winnipeg,
and Malcom Ramsay, polar bear biologist at
the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon,
died in a May 19 helicopter crash at Resolute
Bay, Nunavut. Innes was subject of a forthcoming
BBC documentary about how he
trained his hunting dogs to find ringed seal
dens. Innes and Ramsey were investigating
“whether the lack of multi-year ice in the
High Arctic may create extensive new habitat
for ringed seals, and thereby create feeding
habitat for polar bears,” said Nunavet
Wildlife Service biologist Michael Ferguson.
Karen Yaremkowych, 51, of
Milwaukee, died in a June 22 car accident.
“Karen worked in our wildlife rehabilitation
center for more than 10 years as a volunteer
coordinator and nursery manager,” recalled
Wisconsin Humane Society executive director
Victoria Wellens. “She was also a bat
rehabilitator, who did educational programs
locally and nationally about bats.” Added
Pam Troutman of Star Ferret Rescue, “Karen
had a soft spot for old and ill ferrets and
would take a special ferret from my shelter
each time she visited me. She also adopted a
greyhound whenever she got the chance.”
Eleanor M. Dorsey, 51, author of
A Guide to Marine Mammals of Greater
Puget Sound, died from brain cancer on May
17 in Oleny, Maryland. Dorsey studied
baleen whales at the Long Term Research
Institute in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1977-
1988; spent the next 10 years at the
Conservation Law Foundation in Boston; and
was on the North Atlantic Marine Mammal
Assocation board of directors, 1987-1994.
Her most recent project was editing a collection
of studies on Effects of Fishing Gear on