OBITUARIES
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1995:
Howard Elliott Winn, 69, died August 13 while gardening at his home in North
Kingstown, Rhode Island. Best known for pioneering acoustic research on whale songs,
Winn was author of more than 120 scientific papers altogether, pertaining to birds and fish as
well as marine mammals. “He was scientific director of the Cetacean and Turtle Assessment
Program,” remembered colleague Robert Kenney, “which was a landmark study in 1978-
1982 of the whales, dolphins, and sea turtles off the northeastern United States. Much of his
whale research over the last 15 years focused on the right whale, the most endangered whale
species. He was the lead investigator of the South Channel Ocean Productivity Experiment, a
large program which significantly advanced our understanding of right whale habitat requirements,and served as a member of the national right whale recovery team. In recent years he was conducting a continuing study of the ecology and behavior of coral reef fish in Belize, Central America.” Earning a B.A. in biology at Bowdoin College in 1948, and an M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, 1950 and 1955, Winn taught for 10 years at the
University of Maryland before joining the University of Rhode Island as professor of
oceanography in 1965. Winn served as president of the Animal Behavior Society in 1966.
He is survived by his wife, Susan Hammen-Winn, and four sons.
Activist Dorothy Done, of Ventura County, California, died suddenly on August
25. A memorial from Animal Emancipation remembered her as “coordinator of the campaign
that led California Assembly member Jack O’Connell to twice introduce legislation that would
have banned the Draize eye irritancy test statewide. Each time, despite heavy industry lobbying,
the bill cleared both houses of the California legislature by wide margins, only to be
vetoed by pro-vivisection, pro-industry governors.” She is survived by her husband, fellow
animal rights activist Clark Done.
Thomas Harmon, 37, of Downer’s Grove, Illinois, was found dead of apparent
suicide on September 1 in the garage of the home he shared with fiance Sari Mintz. The
garage door was reportedly jammed shut and the engine of the vehicle inside was running.
Harmon was due in court on September 18 on charges of keeping a dangerous animal and
obstructing a police officer, resulting from a June 18 incident in which an “exotic jungle cat”
purportedly belonging to Mintz, believed to be a hybrid of uncertain ancestry, mauled
Mintz’s two-year-old niece, Alice Mintz, who received 200 stitches. The victim’s parents,
Bill and Judy Mintz, sought to have the cat euthanized for rabies testing. When Sari Mintz
balked, DuPage County Judge Bonnie Wheeler on June 23 issued an emergency order that
the cat be euthanized and tested––but Harmon, who originally bought the cat from an Iowa
City breeder as a gift to Sari Mintz, took the cat to Iowa, leaving the cat with Iowa City veterinarian Greg Zimmerman for rabies obervation. On June 30, however, Zimmerman euthanized the cat, as activists protested outside his clinic. The cat turned out to be not rabid.
