From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2009:
Paul Harvey, 90, died on February 28, 2009 in Phoenix,
Arizona. Beginning in radio journalism while still in high school in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, Harvey met and married Lynne Cooper, whom he
called Angel, while working for St. Louis radio station KXOK in
1940. She became his chief researcher until her death in 2008. They
were later joined by their son, Paul Harvey Jr. At peak in the
1970s, their broadcasts reached more than 24 million listeners via
more than 1,200 American Broadcasting Company affiliates plus 400
Armed Forces Radio stations. In addition, 300 newspapers carried
Paul Harvey’s syndicated column. “Paul and Angel were two of the best
friends that animal protection and the Humane Society of the U.S.
ever had,” recalled HSUS president Wayne Pacelle. “The same must be
said of Paul Harvey Jr. The September 1956 issue of HSUS News
records that Harvey reported on the activity of the House
Agricultural Com-mittee in regard to humane slaughter,” during the
campaign for the Humane Slaughter Act, passed in 1958. “He also
appealed for an end to slaughterhouse cruelties in his newspaper
column,” Pacelle continued.

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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.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:
Phyllis Jean Stoner Clifton, 79, mother of ANIMAL PEOPLE
editor Merritt Clifton, died on December 19, 2008 at home in
Bellingham, Washington. Becoming a vegetarian in 1949, upon
marriage to Jack Clifton, who survives her, she remained
vegetarian during long hospitalizations in the 1950s and 1960s, when
hospitals rarely accommodated vegetarian patients. A schoolteacher
in parts of four decades, she reviewed 29 biographies, novels, and
books about cats for ANIMAL PEOPLE, 1992-1997, and contributed to
many other periodicals until the onset of her terminal illness
inhibited her ability to write.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2009:

Lelani, 13, a German shepherd adopted from an animal
shelter who became foster mother to the orphaned bear cubs
rehabilitated by Idaho Black Bear Rehab in Garden City, Idaho, died
on December 28, 2008. “Until LeLani,” recalled Idaho Black Bear
Rehab founder Sally Maughn, “single cubs would bawl and pace when
they were left alone in our outdoor enclosures. I couldn’t be with
them all the time, so LeLani was a blessing to both the cubs and me.
Now comes the decision of trying to get another ‘bear dog’ or not,
and will I ever find one as good with the cubs as LeLani was.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:

Right: Ray Fadden about 50 years ago with his pet porcupine
Needles. “Dad had the knack of picking up Needles,” recalls son
John Fadden. “One evening when the light wasn’t good, he picked up
a wild porcupine by mistake. He wondered why he put up such a fuss.
He even put him in his huge chicken wire-covered teepee cage. Later,
the real Needles roamed home, and Dad realized his mistake. Needless
to say he let the other one free, and he hurried away as fast as he
could, which wasn’t too fast, as you know. When he was young,
Dad had an un-descented skunk too,” John Fadden added. “The skunk
lived in his camp/shack in back of the house, he told me.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)
Scarlett, a calico cat believed to be about 15, was euthanized on October 11, 2008 due to incurably painful conditions of age. Initially a Brooklyn alley cat, Scarlett lived with her kittens in a Brooklyn warehouse until March 29, 1996 when the warehouse caught fire. Firefighter David Giannelli of Ladder Company 175, involved in several other animal rescues of note during his long career, saw Scarlett dash five times into the blaze despite increasingly severe burns to rescue each of her four-week-old kittens. Giannelli took Scarlett and her kittens to the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington. There Scarlett was named in honor of Rhett Butler s line to Scarlett O Hara in the film Gone With The Wind: A cat s a better mother than you are. One kitten died from a virus about a month after the fire, but Scarlett and the others were adopted out after three months of treatment and socialization. Karen Wellen of Brooklyn kept Scarlett for the rest of Scarlett s life. In her prime Scarlett was a regal 19 pounds, with only severely scarred ears hinting at her traumatic past.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2008:
(Actual publication date 11-5-08.)

Roger Troen, 77, died on April 23, 2008 in Portland, Oregon. Even among fervent animal-rights activists, Roger Troen stood out. He d be the one costumed as a demented butcher with fake blood and cleaver, performing guerrilla theater during an anti-fur protest, or as Colonel Sanders outside KFC protesting factory farming, or chalking the ground outside the Oregon Health Science University primate center, recalled Amy Martinez Starke of the Portland Oregonian. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Mormon convert, and elementary school teacher 1959-1969, Troen left teaching and the Mormon church to become active in gay rights advocacy circa 1970. He took up animal advocacy soon afterward, helping to lead the campaign that in 1977 made Portland the third city in the U.S. to quit killing shelter animals by decompression. Only Berkeley (1972) and San Francisco (1976) quit sooner.

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