Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2006:

Whitey, a street dog brought to the Compassionate Crusaders
Trust in Kolkatta, India, in 1996 by rescuer Uma Rao, died on June
11, 2006. Rao picked him up after “a tram had run over his paw,”
recalled Com-passionate Crusaders founder Debasis Chakra-barti. “He
was just a puppy, foolish enough to think that all humans are kind
and considerate. He did not lose his trust even after his right
front paw had to be amputated. Whitey was loved all his life,” said
Chakrabarti, “because he gave love so lavishly.”

Tas, a kelpie cross kept by Ross Clissold of Woodburn, “was
shot on August 15, 2006 in the Double Duke State Forest on the North
Coast” of Australia “by a recreational shooter licensed by the Game
Council of New South Wales,” wrote Sydney Morning Herald regional
reporter Daniel Lewis. Lewis called Tas a victim of “the state
government’s controversial decision to allow the hunting of feral
animals on public land.” The policy was introduced in March 2006.
“Since then more than 1000 feral animals have been killed by licensed
hunters, who now have access to 142 state forests,” Lewis reported.
Clissold was chainsawing wood about 40 meters away when Tas was
shotgunned, Clissold said. The hunter claimed he didn’t hear
Clissold’s chainsaw or see the dog’s collar.

Willow, 23, a female California sea lion previously used in
show business, died on August 6, 2006 at the ZooQuarium in West
Yarmouth, Massachusetts, her home for 17 years. Hunter, 20, a
retired U.S. Navy sea lion who shared her tank for 14 years, died on
August 14. “They had a very close bond,” trainer Nathalie Bragdon
told Cape Cod Times staff writer Patrick Cassidy.

Cilka, 34, the oldest known Przew-alski’s horse, was
euthanized on August 12, 2006 at the Prague Zoo due to painful and
incurable conditions of age.

Big Red, a rooster who mysteriously arrived in Scio,
Oregon, in the back of a pickup truck in 1998, and made himself the
mascot of the town of about 700 people, was killed on July 11 by a
dog who leaped through the window of a parked car to attack him.
Mauled earlier in the year by another dog, Big Red was saved with
the help of Centennial Elementary School children, who donated
$113.15 toward his care. When attacked again, Big Red staggered to
veterinarian Sally Cole’s office before collapsing at her doorstep.
He lived just long enough, as Cole gave him oxygen, for his
caretakers, Marian and Audie Heikkila, to reach the office and say
goodbye, the Albany Democrat-Herald reported. Big Red had become a
tourist attract, featured on CNN and Fox News.

Angelina Ballerina, a young female baboon named earlier in
2006 when treated by the Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic for a skull
fracture believed to have been inflicted by a human, was poisoned
near Kommetjie, South Africa, along with two companions, during
the third week of August 2006. Her troop has been reduced since
March from 26 members to 16 by a variety of attacks and accidents,
said Jenni Trethowan of Baboon Matters, a group which tries to keep
baboons from coming into conflict with humans.

Tata, 59, a crow kept by Kristine Flores of Bearsville,
New York, died on July 2, at nearly four times the age of the
oldest banded crow in the wild and twice the reported age of the
oldest anecdotally identified crow, Cornell University ornithologist
Kevin McGowan told Kingston Freeman staff writer Joshua Rinaldi.
Knocked out of his nest as a fledgling by lightning in 1947, Tata
was rescued by a Long Island cemetery caretaker, and was kept until
2001 by a family named Manetta. Unable to keep him due to their own
declining health, they gave him to Flores in 2001. “Tata made
headlines in 2002 when the state Department of Environmental
Conserv-ation seized him from Flores,” recalled Rinaldi, “claiming
that because he wasn’t with his original owner, he was a wild bird
again. The DEC then said Tata had to be euthanized because he was
blind and unable to fly. Flores fought for Tata in court, and a
judge eventually ruled in her favor. The bird returned to Flores’
home after six weeks away.”