ANIMAL OBITUARIES
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1999:
Si Tanang, a baby dugong found
snagged in a prawn net on January 25 off
Sabeh, Malaysia, by fisher Atan Husin, 51,
and his son Roslan, 25, was discovered dead
by their friend Zahid Mohamed less than 48
hours after Atan released her on March 8,
under escalating pressure from the World
Wildlife Fund. The Malaysian government initially
told Atan he could keep and raise Si
Tanang, or sell her to an aquarium, but backtracked
as WWF turned up the heat. Atan and
family fed the baby dugong sea grass pulverized
in a blender, and she was reportedly
healthy when released. The Malaysian government
refused to allow Atan to bury her as a
deceased member of his family. Four dead
adult dugongs were later found floating in the
same vicinity, one of whom may have been Si
Tanang’s mother. The incident kindled new
interest in dugongs, believed to have been
extinct in Sabeh waters since 1974. All
Malaysia seemed to rejoice when on March 25
an aerial survey found three live dugongs
swimming off Pulau Nenas.
Abby, 3, a harlequin Great Dane
who weighed half what she should have when
left in a drop-off pen at the Medina County
Humane Society in Medina, Ohio, on the subfreezing
night of February 25, died on March
3 from complications of hypothermia. NASA
volunteers at the John H. Glenn Research
Center in Cleveland enhanced a security camera
video of the drop-off, enabling the
humane society to bring cruelty charges
against Dale and Cheryl Brainard of Grafton,
Ohio. The Brainards’ attorney, Ronald Spears
of Medina, told Laura Haferd of the Akron
Beacon-Journal that the drop-off pen invites
people to leave dogs as the Brainards did, and
that drop-off forms left in a mailbox nearby,
with instructions that dogs should not be left
after shelter hours, were not obvious to people
unfamiliar with shelter procedures.
Henry, a pheasant who escaped
from a captive bird shoot and took up residence
on the village green in Wiseman’s
Bridge, Wales, was run over on March 26.
Irate villagers alleged that he was killed deliberately
by a postman. Henry attacked one
postman, Gerald Lloyd, 59, so often and so
aggressively that Lloyd eventually refused to
deliver mail to Wiseman’s Bridge.
Rusty, 12, red wolf resident at the
Texas Zoo in Victoria since 1989, was euthanized
in March due to advanced arthritis.
Rusty sired 19 pups for the red wolf species
recovery program jointly managed by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service and the American
Zoo Association.
Hannah, 13, a retired racing greyhound,
died on February 23. Adopted by Fred
Shoken and Donna Beth Joy Shapiro in 1987
after a year of competing under the name
Stakerunner, Hannah became mascot of their
successful campaign to save the 1941-vintage
art moderne Greyhound bus terminal in
Baltimore, which is now the office of the
Metropolitan Planning Council, and the adjacent
garage, now part of the Maryland
Historical Society gallery space.
Smart Jaune, 10, the thoroughbred
who won the 1998 Aiken Steeplechase at
Aiken, South Carolina, died from heat
exhaustion after collapsing just before the final
hurdle during the 1999 running of the race.
Monty and Jemima, each age six,
African lions at the Glasgow Zoo in Scotland,
died on March 17 from apparent barbituate
poisoning. The lions may have been fed meat
which was supposed to have been used to
euthanize an ailing predator, zoo director
Richard O’Grady suggested. Four other lions
including Monty and Jemima’s trio of ninemonth-old
cubs were evidently unaffected.
Reportedly £2 million in debt, the 62-year-old
zoo drew allegations of mismanagement in
1997 when a bear––lost for months––was
found decomposing under brush in his cage.
Bob, seven, a boxer/retriever mix
who was walking with his owner Paul Wright
and Wright’s three-year-old daughter on family
property near Crawford, Colorado, was
killed in mid-March when he sniffed and
tugged at a cyanide-firing “coyote-getter”
placed by a USDA Wildlife Services trapper at
request of ranchers Michelle and Larry Jensen.
Paul Wright told Nancy Lofholm of the
Denver Post that a day later he finally found
the warning notice the trapper was supposed to
have left––tacked to a tree 40 feet away.
Rodman, 3, running in a team
owned by former Iditarod champion Doug
Swingley, driven by Jenny Gebauer, of
Lincoln, Montana, on March 14 became perhaps
the only dog to die in the 1999 Iditarod.
More than 70 dogs died in early years of the
race, but dog care markedly improved after it
become a humane cause celebre in the 1980s.
Kaweah, California condor mother
of 15 chicks including the first of her species
born in captivity, died on March 10 at the Los
Angeles Zoo. She was among the 22 last wild
California condors who were live-trapped for
captive breeding in 1986. Fifty-six captivebred
California condors have now been
released into the wild.
Chip and Happy, chimpanzees at
the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, were shotgunned
on February 27 after escaping and
severely injuring zoo worker Jamie Bradley,
28, as well as injuring primate supervisor
Kimberly Tropea, 35, when she went to
Bradley’s aid. A third chimp, Tammy, who
escaped with them but did not participate in
the attacks, is to be transferred to another zoo.
Benbitouou, a four-month-old reticulated
giraffe, died of acute colic at the Hogle
Zoo on March 7––a possible effect of being
weaned too early by his first-time mother, said
Hogle veterinarian Tracy Thompson.
Sabre, 15, a Polish Arabian gelding
with a history of labored breathing, died from
pulmonary edema on February 22 during a
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Parade in Norfolk, Virginia.
Arco, 3, a badge-wearing Belgian
Malinois trained to detect drugs, weapons,
and cadavers, was euthanized on March 4
after suffering paralysis from an unknown
sniper’s bullet in Berkeley County, Maryland.
Arco was on duty for two years with Berkeley
County School District Department of Public
Safety agent Wayne Hall.
Sadie Bear, 14, the St. Bernard
mix who was the oldest dog at the Trixie
Foundation no-kill shelter in Grayson,
Kentucky, died on December 4, 1998. She
was a seven-week-old novice junkyard dog
when Trixie Foundation founder Randy
