Human obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Elmina Brewster Sewall, 93, died on April 7, 2005 in
Kennebunk, Maine. Among the first breeders of Sussex spaniel show
dogs in the U.S., Brewster Sewall “between 1936 and 1940, imported
some of the best stock available in England,” and “went on to breed
seven litters over the next six years,” wrote John Robert Lewis Jr.
in Sussex Spaniel, A Complete and Reliable Handbook (1997). Brewster
Sewall also “bred and raised pugs, and was a familiar figure at the
Westminster Dog Show,” recalled Katie Dolloff, program coordinator
for the Animal Welfare Society of Southern Maine. But she had also
become concerned about pet overpopulation, and in the 1950s allowed
her line of Sussex spaniels to die out. After several years of
informal animal rescue, Brewster Sewall and friends incorporated the
Animal Welfare Society in 1967. A longtime AWS board member,
Brewster Sewall was also active in greyhound rescue, and assisted
other charities including Mainely Girls, Friends of the Sea Otter,
the Student Conservation Association, and the Massachusetts SPCA.
The AWS named the Elmina B. Sewall Animal Shelter after her in 1990.
It finds homes for more than 3,000 animals a year,” Dolloff said.

Paul G. Dye, 68, died on April 2. “Dye was born in Ohio,
but spent most of his youth in New Jersey,” recalled the Everett
Herald. “By age 12, he had already started raising waterfowl.
After moving to the Pacific Northwest, Dye purchased part of a
wetland near Lake Cassidy,” which became the Northwest Wildfowl
Farm, featuring “32 ponds, eight acres of grain fields, four miles
of trails, a salmon stream, and forestry improvements for grouse
and other woodland species. Nesting sites have been installed for
wood ducks, flying squirrels, bats, chickadees and flickers,”
along with an “enclosed and heated wildlife observation blind and an
observation tower for visitors.” Dye and Charles Pilling of Seattle
were reputedly the first to breed the endangered spectacled eider in
captivity, and helped to started a captive breedng program for the
eider on the North Slope of Alaska.

Vicky Elizabeth Bartlett, 50, of Kew, Australia, a suburb
of Melbourne, wife of sculptor Geoffrey Bartlett, was on February
28 flipped into the air and trampled by a hippo at Fisherman’s Camp
on Lake Naivasha, Kenya. Traveling with a group of 12 fellow
tourists to the Masai Mara Game Reserve, Bartlett was fascinated by
a hippo she saw the night before, tour guide John Mwangi said, and
apparently went off alone to look for another one.

Bob Hunter, 63, died of prostate cancer in Toronto on May
2, 2005. “Hunter, a columnist for the Vancouver Sun in the 1960s,
came to prominence in 1971 with the launch of Greenpeace and its
protests against nuclear testing,” recalled Associated Press.
“Hunter, who coined the phrase ‘Don’t Make a Wave,’ the original
name of Greenpeace, “boarded a small fishing boat dubbed the
Greenpeace in 1971 and set off to Alaska to protest U.S. nuclear
testing. ‘I thought I was going to be a reporter, taking notes,’
Hunter later said. ‘In reality, I wound up on first watch.’ Hunter
was elected the first president of Greenpeace in 1973. “In 1974, Bob
took the embers of what we began with the 1971 voyage to Amchitka to
oppose nuclear testing, and he fanned the dying sparks into the
flames that became the Greenpeace movement,” e-mailed Greenpeace
cofounder and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson.
“If there had been no Robert Hunter, Greenpeace would simply be a
footnote in the history books from the early seventies. In March of
1976, he and I stood on the heaving ice floes off the coast of
Labrador as a large sealing ship bore down on us. The ice cracked
and split beneath our feet as I said to Bob ‘When it splits, I’ll
jump to the left and you to the right.’ Bob looked straight ahead
and calmly said, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Because he stayed, I
stayed, and we brought that seal killing ship to a dead stop. Bob
participated in numerous campaigns with the Sea Shepherds,” Watson
added. “His last campaign with us was off the coast of Washington
State in 1998-1999,” against Makah tribe whaling. “It was my great
privilege to have been his friend for 35 years. With his passing
the Sea Shepherd Conserv-ation Society loses one of our most valued
Advisory Board members.” In recent years Hunter was environmental
news specialist for CHUM Citytv and CP24 in Toronto. “He was perhaps
best known to Toronto viewers for ‘Paper Cuts,’ a segment in which
he wore a bathrobe and commented on the stories in the day’s news,”
Associated Press said.

Arlin Resnicke, 48, died of cancer on April 7, 2005, in
Bakersfield, California. A motorcycle mechanic who worked at home,
Resnicke had kennels for 16 rescued Siberian huskies in his yard,
and in more than 15 years of helping huskies, found homes for
several hundred. “Every-thing was for the dogs,” fellow rescuer
Nikki Artiaga said. “The dogs were his life.” The huskies left by
his death were rehomed by Siberian Referral of California.

Nancy Elizabeth Hand, 58, died on March 3, 2005, in
Hanover, Michigan, remembered by the Jackson Citizen Patriot for
her love of animals and many animal companions. “Her nurturing,
compassionate nature prompted her to serve as foster guardian for
many abused and homeless animals,” the Citizen Patriot noted.