Obituaries [March 2009]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2009:

Tony Gregory, 61, longtime vice president of the Irish
Council Against Blood Sports and member of the Dail, the Irish
parliament, since 1982, died on January 2, 2009. Gregory was
also a member of the Dublin city council, 1979-2004. Recalled ICAB
president Philip Kiernan, “In 1993, he courageously brought a
private member’s bill to outlaw hare coursing. Sadly, only sixteen
[other members] supported it, some of whom defied their party whip to
do so. Tony informed himself very well on the issues, observing
hare coursing, fox hunting, and carted deer hunts first hand. Once
coming across a badger sett illegally blocked by a foxhunt club, he
rowed in and helped to unblock the sett, going on to face down the
hunt and remonstrate with them.”

Jean Marie Hodgdon Keene, 85, died on January 13, 2009 at
her home in Homer, Alaska. A horse trainer and trick rider in her
youth, she joined the traveling Red River Rodeo in 1952, and was
booked to ride in Madison Square Garden, but fell and was dragged by
a horse at the Olympia Area in Detroit. Her riding career ended,
she hauled cattle, bred and groomed dogs, and ran a truck stop
before becoming a fish processor in Homer in 1977. Already feeding
other birds, Keene soon began giving fish scraps and roadkill to
bald eagles, eventually attracting more than 200 and at times as
many as 500 to Homer Spit. The eagle congregation became both a
tourist attraction and a local nuisance. The Homer city council in
2006 banned feeding eagles within city limits, but allowed Keene to
continue until April 2010, and in January 2009 allowed her former
helper Steve Tarola to continue the eagle feedings until March 27,
2009.

Jean A. MacKenzie, 86, died on July 4, 2008 in Vancouver.
An ambulance driver in World War II, MacKenzie later served in the
Woman’s Royal Canadian Naval Service. An avid rider in her youth,
MacKenzie after the war became a nationally noted dog trainer in
Trail, British Columbia, but refocused on equestrian training about
a decade later after relocating to first Duncan and then Vancouver,
winning a bronze metal in team dressage at the Pan American Games in
Winnipeg in 1972. She also served as first female president of the
Southlands Riding & Polo Club in Vancouver. “In later years she
became a passionate vegan. Her home was often a sanctuary for
orphaned or injured wildlife, and she strongly supported charities
relating to nature conservation and animal rights,” recalled the
Toronto Globe & Mail.

Secoomar Brijmohan, 63, a gardener in Hilton,
KwaZulu-Natal, was killed circa January 7, 2009, when he ate a
poisoned banana that he thought his employer had left on a table for
him. It had actually been left as part of an illegal attempt to kill
monkeys