Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2003:

Kalpana Chawla,  41,  remembered in
Indian newspaper obituaries right after mention
that she was an astronaut as “A devout Hindu and
fourth generation vegetarian,”  was killedon
February 1 along with all six of her flightmates
when the space shuttle Columbia exploded over
Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s
atmosphere.  Born to Pakistani immigrant parents
in Haryana state,  India,  Chawla married flight
instructor Jean Pierre Harrison soon after
starting aerospace engineering studies at the
University of Texas at Arlington.  She lived in
Texas for the rest of her life,  but maintained
her links to India as well.  Haryana residents
saluted her first spaceflight in 1997 with a
torchlight parade that they hoped she could see
from orbit.

Tracy Bragg,  57,  drowned or died from
exposure on January 21 near her home in Fort
Collins,  Colorado,  while saving her chocolate
Lab puppy Clara,  who had fallen into a partially
iced-over pond.  Freed from the pond,  the puppy
raced to fetch her husband,  Thomas Bragg,  and
sons Jake and Al,  who followed Clara’s tracks
back to the scene but arrived too late to save
her.

Ouyang Changwei,  24,  a zookeeper at the
Wuhan Forest Safari Park in Hubei province,
China,  was fatally mauled on January 15 by two
African lionnesses who had reportedly escaped
through an open cage door to roam the grounds.
Dylan Bradbury,  10,  of Stephen-ville
Crossing,  Newfoundland,  on December 31 escaped
from his burning family home with his sisters,
but was killed when he ran back inside to try to
save his dog.

Michele A. Matras,  53,  director of the
National REGAP Network in Illinois,  died on
October 28,  2002,  from esophageal cancer.
Matras and her hsuband John had been active in
greyhound rescue since 1991.

Roger Gould King,  61,  died in
Johannesburg,  South Africa,  on February 4.
“Although virtually bedridden after years of
fighting pneumonia,  and needing a breathing
machine more and more,  Roger was an
indispensable ally in campaigns,”  recalled
Kalahari Raptor Centre operators Chris Mercer and
Beverly Pervan.  “Despite his disabilities,”
they added,  “he was among the most important
links in the South African animal rights
movement,  a pioneer of Internet-based animal
activism,”  whose particular concerns included
saving caracals and wild dogs from persecution by
game farmers.

Chellu Singh,  17,  and fellow Bishnoi
youth from Sewdi village,  Nagaur district,  near
Jaipur,  India,  on January 30 tried to detain a
gang of poachers who had reportedly shot more
than a dozen deer from the backs of camels.  The
poachers shot Singh and fled.

Grace Staton DuMond,  95,  died on
January 24 in Miami,  Florida.  “Enamored by the
theories of Charles Darwin and bent on building a
home for primates,”  recalled Tere Figueras of
the Miami Herald,  her late husband Joseph
abandoned a career as a commercial artist in
Connecticut in 1932.  The DuMonds bought the
10-acre Monkey Jungle zoo site in 1932,  released
several monkeys into it,  and began charging
visitors 10¢ apiece for a tour.  They turned the
business over to son Frank and retired to Cuba in
1956,  ran a hunting goods store in Costa Rica
after Fidel Castro came to power,  and returned
to Monkey Jungle in 1965.  Joseph DuMond died in
1967 and Frank DuMond died in 1977.  His wife
Mary headed the operation until her death in
1987,  when Sharon DuMond,  daughter of Frank and
Mary,  became the third generation of DuMonds to
run Monkey Jungle.  The zoo became an animal
rights cause celebré in the 1980s over the living
conditions of male gorilla named King.  Acquired
in 1979 from a circus,  King lived alone for 20
years in a barred cement cell about the size of a
small mobile home.   Demonstrations led by the
Animal Rights Foundation of Florida and critical
comments by visitors including Jane Goodall and
Doris Day eventually persuaded Monkey Jungle to
build King a more comfortable new home,  which he
has occupied since early 2001.

Jackie Ciano,  47,  a Wildlife Trust
whale researcher from Wellfleet,  Massa-chusetts,
conservation biologist Emily Argo,  25,  of St.
Petersburg,  Florida,  researcher Michael
Newcomer,  49,  of Los Altos,  California,  and
pilot Tom Hinds of Fernand-ina Beach,  Florida,
were killed on January 26 when their aircraft
crashed into the Atlantic Ocean for unknown
reasons while they were looking for migrating
right whales.