Obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2003:

William B. Johnston, DVM, 56, State Public Health
Veterinarian for the Alabama Department of Public Health, and crrent
president of the National Association of State Public Health
Veterinarians, died on August 4 from esophageal cancer. Colleague
Millicent Eidson recalled him as a “national leader” in developing
the use of oral rabies vaccination to control raccoon rabies.
Eighteen states have now controlled rabies outbreaks by using the
Raboral vaccine.

Barbara Bonner, 46, founder and director of the Turtle
Hospital of New England, died suddenly at home in Upton,
Massachusetts, of unknown causes on August 1. Bonner was noted for
advocacy and educational efforts on behalf of Asian turtle species,
many of which are on the verge of extinction due to meat hunting.

Robert McCloskey, 88, died on June 30 on Deer Isle, Maine.
McCloskey won the American Library Association’s Caldecott Medal in
1941 as writer/illustrator of Make Way For Ducklings, about the
ducks who have long inhabited the Boston Public Gardens, and in 1957
for Time of Wonder, about the Maine coastal islands. He also wrote
and illustrated Blueberries for Sal (1948), in which a child and a
bear each follow the wrong mama home.

John F. Eisenberg, 68, died on July 6 from renal cancer at
his home in Bellingham, Washington. Staff scientist at the National
Zoo in Washington D.C., 1965-1982, Eisenberg authored The Mammalian
Radiations (1981), among the most influential examinations to date
of mammal evolution, and co-authored with Kent H. Redford the
three-volume encyclopedia Mammals of the Neotropics.

Michael Peterman, 48, died on August 4 at the University of
Cincinnati Hospital from a bite inflicted by his own African rhino
viper. A Dayton firefighter, Peterman collected reptiles and did
some local reptile rescuing.

Kirsty Brown, 28, a marine biologist working at the British
Antarctic Survey research station at Rothera, was drowned by a
leopard seal in an unprecedented unprovoked attack while snorkeling
with three companions on July 22. None were able to reach her in
time to help. The prevailing theory is that the leopard seal mistook
Brown for a penguin, but released her remains upon realizing his
mistake.

Rebecca Brenneman Devine, 53, a neonatal intensive care
nurse, drowned on July 14 in an unsuccessful effort to save her
nine-year-old golden retriever Buster, who fell 30 feet down a
spillway into an irrigation ditch near their home in Durango,
Colorado. Both Devine and Buster suffered head injuries, apparently
from being slammed into cement baffles by turbulent water. Devine
left her husband of 22 years and two sons.

Katy Reeves, 17, of Spokane, Washington, was killed by a
crocodile on August 4 while vacationing with her family at remote
Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. Her father, Jack Reeves,
reportedly had to hike for five hours to reach the nearest telephone
and notify relatives. Katy Reeves spent the summer of 2002 as a
student volunteer with a sea turtle rescue project in Costa Rica.

Claudio Roggero, 60, of Glasgow, Scotland, drowned on
August 8 after rescuing his dog from the Clyde Canal.