Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

Roadway, a semi-feral cat known to many as “the cat who
plays with deer,” and famously photographed in an encounter with a
wild turkey, was rescued by the Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance in
1990 from a Denver warehouse after he arrived as a stowaway on a
Roadway truck from Ohio. On March 19, 2003, one day after 51
inches of wet snow blanketed his habitat, Roadway developed a
urinary tract blockage. Friends and neighbors hauled him one and a
half miles by snowshoe and 20 miles by highway to a veterinary
clinic, where after successful surgery he pulled a catheter from his
leg and bled to death. –Audrey Boag

Adult Condor #8, one of the last 22 California condors left
alive as of 1986 when she was captured from the wild and put into a
captive breeding program in a last-ditch effort to save the species,
was found dead on February 13 in Kern County, shot by a poacher.
She may have been as old as 40. AC-8 was returned to the wild in
April 2000, after hatching about a dozen young, but was recaptured
for treatment in fall 2002 to be treated for lead poisoning,
probably cotracted from ingesting fragments of lead shot while
consuming a carcass. She was re-released on December 23. There are
now 79 other Calif-ornia condors in the wild and 118 in captivity.

Elephant Lin Wang, also called Grandpa Lin, 86, believed
to have been the oldest Asian elephant in captitivty, died on
February 26 at the Taipei Zoo, his home since 1953. Drafted by the
Japanese army to drag cannon and supplies through Burma, Lin Wang
was captured by Chinese and British forces in 1943. General Sun
Li-jen took Lin Wang to China in 1945 and then evacuated him to
Taiwan with a female companion, who soon died, in 1947.

Sporty Old Joe Bailey, 37, was euthanized on January 22 due
to cancer. A registered American quarter horse, Bailey was a
ribbon-winning barrel racer in his youth, and then part of a
sheriff’s posse. In retirement near Kushla, Alabama, he was often
reported to the Mobile County SPCA as a suspected neglect case,
because of his bony appearance, but humane officer Elizabeth Flott
learned upon investigation that his biggest problem was an inability
to digest all the rich food such as corn and apples that passers-by
tried to feed him. “He was like a 110-year-old man,” Flott told
Mobile Register staff reporter Karen Tolkkinen.

Hawkeye, 22. the star performing California sea lion at Zoo
Negarain Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, since 1986, died on February 24.

Wolf #2, imported from Canada to help lead the Yellowstone
National Park wolf restoration in January 1995, lost his place as
alpha male of the Leopold Pack in November 2002, and was found dead
on New Year’s Eve, killed by members of the Geode Pack. Wolf #2
raised eight litters of pups with his longtime male, Wolf #7. The
pups grew up to replenish the Leopold Pack and form the Swan Lake
Pack. Wolf #7 was found dead, a probable victim of other wolves,
in May 2002.

Hugo, 42, a male Asian elephant nicknamed “The Master of
Disaster” for the gusto with which he smashed ice blocks, destroyed
snowmen, and broke down doors, died unexpectedly from an unknown
disease on January 17 at the Oregon Zoo, his home since 1983.

Veko, 11, a German shepherd police dog handled by Officer
Hank Minor of Manchester, Connecticut, was euthanized on February
23 due to incurable conditions of age. Veko received the Daniel
Wasson Memorial K-9 Award for 2001, the top honor for Connecticut
police dogs.

Ivan, 20, the oldest known Siberian tiger in North America,
was euthanized on January 9 due to conditions of age. Born at the
Fort Worth Zoo, Ivan had lived at the Potter Park Zoo in Lansing,
Michigan, since 1989.

Meena, 33, a female chimpanzee born in Sweden, brought to
India in 1995, died on February 19 at the Mysore Zoo, 24 hours
after undergoing an emergency amputation of a gangrenous right arm
that was allegedly crushed on purpose by four corrupt employees, in
retaliation for improved secruity measures that curtailed their
thefts. The four men allegedly also killed a boar and an emu. They
were arrested and charged after a week-long investigation.

Shiva, 22, a male chimpanzee recently rescued from a circus
by People for Animals/Chennai, along with his companions Ganga, 43,
Lakshmi, 22, and Guru, 10, died in quarantine on March 16 at the
Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur.