From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:
Warren D. Thomas, DVM, 70, died from a sudden illness on a
March 17 trip to Brunei. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas
was a junior keeper at the Columbus Zoo when he helped to deliver the
first gorilla known to have been born in captivity, and was profiled
in Life magazine. Thomas became director of the Oklahoma City Zoo in
1951, at age 21, and built it into a major institution by 1965,
when he moved to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. After planning
significant expansion, Thomas in 1970 planned, built, and became
first director of the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. That
brought a 1974 invitation from then-Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley to
preside over the Griffith Park Zoo, now known as the Los Angeles
Zoo. By 1982 Thomas had expanded the Los Angeles collection to
include more than 500 species. As public attitudes toward zoos
evolved, and the old “menagerie” approach began to yield to an
emphasis on conservation of endangered species, Thomas committed the
Los Angeles Zoo to participation in the California condor recovery
program, and founded the Sumatran Rhinoceros Trust. But his Los
Angeles tenure was marked by running feuds with the fundraising Los
Angeles Zoo Association, the Humane Society of the U.S., and his
boss, city Recreation and Parks director James Hadaway, beginning
when Hadaway suspended him for five days for allegedly mishandling
ivory. Hadaway fired Thomas in June 1986 for reportedly using racial
epithets, neglecting records of animal transfers, and
misappropriating zoo supplies. Thomas won reinstatement and $170,000
in back pay plus legal costs, but resigned in October 1990 during a
dispute with the city over his management of a slush fund and failure
to comply with USDA orders to address a variety of sanitation,
drainage, insect, and rodent problems. In recent years, Thomas
did zoological consulting and lectured aboard cruise ships.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

#346, 22, reputedly the smartest and most prolific
livestock killer among all Montana male grizzlies, and one of the
oldest wild male grizzlies on record, was killed on April 18 at the
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks laboratory in
Bozeman. He apparently learned to kill cattle from a female, #316,
circa 1984. They were trapped and tattooed together in 1985. #316
was shot for continued cattle-killing in 1987, but #346 went on to
devour an estimated $200,000 worth of livestock, evading 13 years of
determined efforts to kill him. “This was a smart bear,”
understated biologist Mike Madel. The USDA Wildlife Services
trappers who finally brought him in agreed that they would probably
never have nabbed him if he had not been slowed by conditions of age.

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