Animal obits

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

Squeak, 14, the Jack Russell terrier who on March 18, 2002
defended Zim-babwean farmer Terry Ford from land invaders, and
refused to leave Ford’s side after Ford was killed, died on May 9,
2006 at the home of Ford’s son Mark. The North Shore Animal League
America and ANIMAL PEOPLE honored Squeak with the July/August 2002
Lewyt Award for Heroic & Compassionate Animals.

Lynn, Marty, and Arthur, three ex-laboratory chimpanzees
who were longtime residents of Primarily Primates, all in their
mid-thirties, died in May from causes respectively identified as
osteomyelitis, a neurological disorder, and acute peritonitis.
Their deaths followed the deaths soon after arrival of former Ohio
State University chimps Kermit, 35, and Bobby, 16. “Chimps have
been known to live to 50,” Prmarily Primates president Wally Swett
told Susan Pagani of the San Antonio Current, “but even though that
is quoted a lot, it’s very rare. “Chimps who have been used in
research are much more susceptible to disease than those that have
not, because of the stress and isolation they have endured.”

Stella, 62, one of 1,400 Kenyan elephants named by the
Amboseli Elephant Research Project, died due to effects of drought
in February 2006 while struggling to follow her family from the
Kajiado District in Kenya to greener pastures in Tanzania.

Luna, 6, a male orca whale who had lived alone in the
Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island since 2001, was
killed on March 9 when he swam too close to the idling propeller of a
tugboat that was waiting out a storm near Bligh Island, and was
sucked into the blades. “For the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation,
he had a spiritual significance,” recalled Jonathan Woodward of the
Toronto Globe & Mail. “Their chief, Ambrose Maquinna, expected to
return after death as a killer whale. Just days after Mr. Maquinna
died, Luna surfaced. Scientists tried to reunite the whale with his
family in 2004, but were thwarted when the natives took to the
waters, luring him far from the pen they set up.”
Andrew, the first bile farm bear rescued by Animals Asia
Foundation founder Jill Robinson, died on February 9, 2006 from
liver cancer, “possibly originating from damage caused on the
farms,” Robinson said. He was rescued in February 2000.

Hal, a young male coyote who was captured in Central Park,
New York City, on March 22, 2006, died on March 30 from secondary
poisoning apparently caused by eating poisoned rodents, en route to
be released upstate. Some activists and wildlife rescuers had
attributed his death to alleged rough handling and excessive
restraint. Whatever the cause, New York City parks commissioner
Adrian Benepe said a second coyote seen in Central Park would be left
alone. The second coyote was named Jacobus Van Cortlandt, after an
18th century mayor who helped to found Central Park.

Jackie, a male duck who waited beside the pen of his injured
mate Heckle at the Bell Trace retirement community in Bloomington,
Indiana, while Heckle recovered from a broken leg, was beheaded on
May 20 by an unknown assailant. Heckle, whose leg as treated by
WildCare Inc., was returned to WildCare for safe release.

Rufus, a wild turkey who for six months was “unofficial
greeter, pet and tourist attraction at the Jacques Spur Junction
Cafe” in Culdesac, Idaho, according to Associated Press, was
grabbed on April 15, the opening day of turkey hunting season, by
an older man who threw him alive through the open hatch of an older
model Chevy Blazer with Idaho plates and raced away.

Boris, at least 20, a bull bison who migrated more than 200
miles annually between Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks,
was found dead from probable starvation in March 2006. “No other
bison has been recorded migrating 200-plus miles since the park icon
was nearly exterminated a century ago,” wrote Rebecca Hunt-ington of
the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Initially Boris migrated with two
other bulls, then in 1997 led a herd of 10. Neither of the other
bulls survived 1997, but Boris and the cows were “a tremendous
conservation asset in terms of introducing Yellowstone genes into the
Jackson herd,” said Grand Teton National Park biologist Steve Cain.