From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2008:
Windchill, 9 months, a mix of Appaloosa and Tennessee
Walking Horse, died on February 29, 2008, 20 days after he was
found suffering from starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia in
the barn of Pam Javenkoski, of South Range, Minnesota. He was
discovered by Theresa Farmer of South Range, who had boarded him
with Javenkoski since September 1997 as part of a deal by which
Javenkoski was to acquire another horse from Farmer. Rated only a 1%
chance of survival by the first veterinarian who examined him after
his rescue, Windchill was taken to Kathi Davis and Jeff Tucker of
Raindance Farms. Tucker told Duluth News Tribune reporter Will
Ashenmacher that a blog about Windchill’s effort to survive had drawn
2.9 million hits in two weeks, plus 40,000 more after his death.
Javenkoski, 47, and Shane Edward Javenkoski, 33, identified as
her ex-husband, on March 10 pleaded not guilty to failing to feed a
confined animal. Equine Allies, a Duluth group that collected
donations for Windchill, but split with Davis and Tucker over the
treatment protocol, told Aschenmacher that the money would be
returned to the donors.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:

Indy, a cattle dog belonging to Evan Levine, 17, of Flint
Township, Michigan, suffocated on February 3, 2008 when caught in
a Conibear trap that was illegally set in the garden of the Temple
Beth El synagogue, despite Evan’s father Pete Levine’s efforts to
force the trap open.

Trucker, 3, a Labrador/pit bull terrier mix kept by Holly
Grant of Anchor-age, Alaska, suffocated in January 2008 in a
Conibear trap set beside Powerline Pass Trail, despite Grant’s
efforts to free him.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2008:
Tom Lantos, 80, died on February 11, 2008. A longtime
animal advocate, Lantos chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee in the
U.S. House of Representatives. For details of his life and deeds,
see the ANIMAL PEOPLE editorial for March 2008, Tom Lantos: a
Wilburforce for our time.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2008:
Perry Fina, 59, died on January 6, 2008 in New Milford,
Connecticut, after a long fight with cancer. A former U.S. Navy Seal
who served three tours in Vietnam, Fina upon leaving the Navy became
an animal behaviorist. He and his wife Linda operated Hearthstone
Kennels in New Milford for 29 years. North Shore Animal League
president John Stevenson hired Fina as an animal training consultant
in 1993. Fina joined North Shore fulltime in 1995 as director of
special adoptions, training animals as companions for disabled
people. He became director of operations in 1997, director of
corporate development in 2003, vice president of national shelter
outreach in 2006, and vice president of planned giving in 2007.
Recalled North Shore in a memorial statement, “Ever the gentleman,
Perry was renowned for his distinctive voice. At many League events,
his was the ‘Voice of God’ that magically filled the room. Perry
Fina devoted his energy, his mind, and above all his heart, to a
vision of a better world for companion animals.” Fina was also noted
for his deadpan sense of humor, and was especially remembered for
his leadership on September 11, 2001, when he saw the two hijacked
aircraft hit the World Trade Center on his way to work. Among the
last commuters to cross the Whitestone bridge before it was closed,
Fina bunked for the duration of the crisis at the North Shore
shelter, with other staff, who followed a disaster plan previously
practiced during severe snow storms. By sundown North Shore had a
mobile unit at Pier 40, near the World Trade Center, assisting the
rescue dogs and pets stranded in the area. Fina also supervised
distributing a temporary excess of donated food to other shelters
throughout the region.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2007:
George Vedder, 91, of Monroe, Connecticut, died on
November 18, 2007 in nearby Bridgeport. An engineer/gunner on a
B-24 bomber during World War II, Vedder worked after the war as an
assembler of aircraft engines. Retiring in 1975, Vedder became a
feral cat feeder. In 1991 Vedder teamed with Kim Bartlett and
Merritt Clifton to trap, sterilize, vaccinate, and release the
many feral cats who inhabited a supermarket parking lot beside the
Monroe offices of the Animals’ Agenda magazine, where Bartlett was
editor and Clifton was news editor. The surgeries were done by
Arnold Brown, DVM, of Trumbull. The project expanded to eight main
locations in northern Fairfield County, and became the first
well-documented U.S. demonstration of neuter/return feral cat
control, honored by the Town of Monroe Police Department for
keeping a raccoon rabies outbreak from crossing into cats. Designing
and building many of the traps used in the project, Vedder continued
to promote and practice neuter/return for the rest of his life.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2007:
Janet Regina Hyland, 73, died on
October 9, 2007 from breast cancer in Sarasota
Florida, 50 years after the start of a
successful six-year struggle against ovarian
cancer. Hyland married Glen Edward on July 2,
1954. Hit by a drunk driver just 37 days later,
he died after eight years in a “persistant
vegetative state,” recalled longtime friend
Vasudev Murti, of Oakland, California.
Originally Catholic, Hyland became an
evangelical Protestant because Catholicism does
not ordain women. Beginning seminary studies in
1955-1958, she completed a masters degree in
theology more than 25 years later. Ordained by
the Assembly of God in 1984, she worked in
prison ministry and with migrant farmworkers.
Hyland became an ethical vegetarian in 1973. Her
first book, The Slaughter Of Terrified Beasts:
A Biblical Basis for the Humane Treatment of
Animals, appeared in 1988. It was revised and
reissued in 2000 as God’s Covenant With Animals.
Her second book, Sexism is a Sin: The Biblical
Basis of Female Equality, appeared in 1995.
Also in 1995 Hyland founded a periodical, Humane
Religion, which she continued until 1998.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2007:

Marjorie Goodness Kelley, 59, on August 4, 2007 was on her
Harley motorcycle, turning into her driveway, when a car struck and
killed her, e-mailed White Mountain Animal League president Mickey de
Rham, who credited Kelley with naming the League. Marge was a board
member and co-founder of WMAL in 1989, de Rham wrote. For someone
who promotes spay/neuter, I greatly admired Marge as a dog breeder.
She had started a book about Apple, a red Doberman bitch, who was
really something. I wish that book could have been finished. I just
found out, de Rham added, that Marge was writing a tribute to
Bossie, our Old Man of the Mountain cow, spokescow for the WMAL,
,who was euthanized shortly before she herself died. De Rham acquired
Bossie, noted for markings resembling the Old Man of the Mountain
rock formation that is the New Hampshire state symbol, at about the
same time the White Mountain Animal League was formed. She was subject
of a children s book, Hey Bossie, You re A Spokescow, by de Rham,
illustrated by Leigh Gusterson, published in 2004 to benefit WMAL.

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