Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

Sodade, a loggerhead sea turtle tagged with a radio
transmitter and tracked via satellite by the Marine Turtle Resarch
Group at the University of Exeter in Cornwall, U.K., was apparently
poached on August 25, 2004 off Cape Verde, an archipelago west of
Africa. “We started to receive an unusually large number of very
high quality location signals from Sodade,” researcher Brendan
Godley explained. “Such signals are received when a turtle spends
large amounts of time at the surface, suggesting she was likely on
the deck of a boat. Then the transmissions ceased, suggesting that
her transmitter was removed and dumped. Given the large number of
turtles captured for food in Cape Verde and the presence of fishing
boats in the area at the time, we think we know her fate.”

Peipei, 33, the oldest known panda in the world, died on
August 13 at the Hangzhou City Zoo in eastern China.

Walster, a racehorse, was scratch-ed from the second race
at the Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville, Massachusetts on August
23 and died the next day, after he was apparently illegally “tubed.”
The procedure consists of pouring baking soda and water down a tube
into the horse’s stomach, which temporarily increases the oxygen
level in the horse’s blood, enabling him to run faster. Tubing can
kill horses if the tube is poked into their lungs instead of their
stomaches. The incident prompted a police investigation. “The death
comes on the heels of a phone betting scandal at Plainridge under
investigation by the Massachusetts Racing Commission and state
police,” wrote Jessica Heslam and Dave Wedge of the Boston Herald.

Hashmi, 75, the oldest elephant at the Nehru Zoological
Park in Hyderabad, India, died on August 26 after a long illness.

Kanook the polar bear, 20, imported from the Reid Park Zoo
in Tucson, Arizona in 2001, was euthanized on June 30 at Sea World
of Australia due to kidney failure.
Bairron, a 7-year-old pony, was killed by a car on July 22
after he and 19 other equines were released from Lear Stables in
rural Dakota County, Minnesota, by a vandal of unidentified motive.

Nina, 10, a Komodo dragon who came to the London Zoo from
the Canary Islands in July 2004, fell to her death on August 18
after scaling a wall to meet her intended mate, Raja, 6, brought
from Miami.

Arusha, 52, a Nile hippopotamus who had lived at the
National Zoo in Washing-ton D.C. since 1955, died quietly in her
pool on August 26. Arusha had 19 calves, including a son who still
lives at the National Zoo.

Gertrude, 22, a hippo resident of the Greater Vancouver Zoo
in Aldergrove, British Columbia, died suddenly on August 13 from no
evident cause.

Picabo, 10, a bottlenose dolphin born at Siegfried & Roy’s
Secret Garden at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas, died
there on July 9 from an unidentified illness.