From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Ginny, 17, a schnauzer/husky mix adopted in 1990 by former
steamfitter Philip Gonzalez, of Long Beach, New York, died on
August 25. Ginny led Gonzalez to the first of more than 800 cats
that she insisted he should rescue on their third day together. Her
determination to find and assist cats in distress compelled Gonzalez
to become a fulltime cat rescuer/caretaker, and brought him out of a
prolonged depression that followed a workplace accident. Gonzalez
and Leonore Fleischer chronicled Ginny’s exploits in a 1995
best-seller, The Dog Who Rescues Cats, and produced a sequel, The
Blessing of the Animals, in 1996. Gonzalez, 55, still feeds 320
feral cats in 19 colonies that Ginny found, and keeps 17 of her
rescues at home, along with two other dogs.

Meimei, 36, believed to have been the oldest living panda
bear, died on July 12 at the Guilin City Zoo in southern China.
Coco, 9, a harbor seal rescued from a Maine Beach in 1996,
kept at the Woods Hole Science Aquarium on Cape Cod since 1998, died
on July 30 after an inner ear infection spread to her brain.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Ed Piukowsky, 52, died of a heart attack on July 9, 2005,
at home in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The son of a police dog
handler, Piukowsky and his wife Bonnie Lanzen-dorfer Piukowsky
founded the Jollyman Animal Sanctuary in 2002. Blairsville Dispatch
reporter Jeff Himler in April 2005 listed the residents as “16 dogs,
50 cats, six chickens, three goats, a dozen each of geese and
ducks, two peafowl, a rabbit and a parrot.” Recalled Dogs Deserve
Better anti-chaining group founder Tammy Grimes, “Ed was very
supportive of me and my work, and had me speak at their fundraisers
each of the past three years. The first time was my first time ever
speaking, and I was so nervous I thought I’d die. I spoke for a
whole 30 seconds, but it was enough to get me past the point of
trying. He told me each year, ‘See, I knew you were going to go
far, didn’t I tell you that?’ He was so proud of me and the
progress we have made.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Spirit of Peace, a rare white bison calf born prematurely in
the North Peace region of British Columbia, died on June 1, 2005
after he refused to eat, rancher Karen Blatz said. Blatz had been
bottle-feeding him, and took him to a veterinarian for antibiotic
treatment, to no avail.

Angela, 23, a diabetic chimpanzee, was euthanized on May
19 at the Belfast Zoo, due to a chronic painful leg condition.

Asiad Appu, 27, an elephant who was crippled as an infant
by falling into a septic tank at Palakkad, India, died on May 14 in
Punnathurkotta, India. A playful nature caused Appu, then called
Kuttinarayanan, to be designated celebrity mascot of the 1982
Second Asian Games by the late Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv
Gandhi, both prime ministers of India who were eventually
assassinated.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Prince Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand III, 81, died
on April 6, 2005. Rainier inherited titular rule of Monaco in 1949,
a principality of less than one square mile, controlled by his
ancestors since 1297, renowned for gambling and as a tax haven for
the rich since the mid-19th century. Rainier revitalized the Monaco
resorts after 1955 with investment capital from Greek whaling baron
Aristotle Onassis–but married animal-loving actress Grace Kelly in
1956, who detested Onassis. To placate Kelly, Rainier banned
pigeon shooting, a favorite Onassis pastime, in Monaco. Rainier
wrongly anticipated reconciling Kelly and Onassis when in 1961 he
persuaded Onassis to join British wildlife artist and trophy hunter
Peter Scott, Prince Philip of Britain, and Prince Bernhardt of The
Netherlands in founding the World Wildlife Fund. Scott and the
princes feared that newly independent former European colonies would
abolish sport hunting, as India and Kenya eventually did. They
sought to save hunting by funding the wildlife departments of
emerging nations, following the example of the National Wildlife
Federation, which in the 1930s lobbied successfully for U.S.
wildlife management to be funded by taxes on hunting licenses and
equipment. Instead of promoting taxes on hunters, however, WWF
raised money directly from the public, to “save animals,” seldom if
ever mentioning the pro-hunting agenda in appeals. The rift between
Kelly and Onassis widened until Onassis sold his Monaco holdings at a
tenfold profit and left in 1965. Rainier remained involved with WWF
to the end of his life, but the tiny Monaco zoo fell into disrpute
after Kelly was killed in a 1982 car crash.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Elmina Brewster Sewall, 93, died on April 7, 2005 in
Kennebunk, Maine. Among the first breeders of Sussex spaniel show
dogs in the U.S., Brewster Sewall “between 1936 and 1940, imported
some of the best stock available in England,” and “went on to breed
seven litters over the next six years,” wrote John Robert Lewis Jr.
in Sussex Spaniel, A Complete and Reliable Handbook (1997). Brewster
Sewall also “bred and raised pugs, and was a familiar figure at the
Westminster Dog Show,” recalled Katie Dolloff, program coordinator
for the Animal Welfare Society of Southern Maine. But she had also
become concerned about pet overpopulation, and in the 1950s allowed
her line of Sussex spaniels to die out. After several years of
informal animal rescue, Brewster Sewall and friends incorporated the
Animal Welfare Society in 1967. A longtime AWS board member,
Brewster Sewall was also active in greyhound rescue, and assisted
other charities including Mainely Girls, Friends of the Sea Otter,
the Student Conservation Association, and the Massachusetts SPCA.
The AWS named the Elmina B. Sewall Animal Shelter after her in 1990.
It finds homes for more than 3,000 animals a year,” Dolloff said.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Splash, 15, a 16-foot male orca born at Marineland Canada
in Niagara, Ontario, sold to SeaWorld in 1992, died on April 5 at
SeaWorld San Diego. Splash suffered from a series of infections and
illnesses that apparently began after he seriously scraped his face
in a 1994 collision with the side of his tank.

Dare, 6, a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, died on March 10 at
the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue & Rehabilitation Center on
Topsail Island, North Carolina. Found as a stranded one-year-old in
Dare County in 1999, Dare was emaciated and battered from collisions
with boats. She was to be returned to the sea in September 1999 when
Hurricane Floyd hit. Volunteers fleeing the rescue center took her
home with them, but then had to flee their home as well. Flood
water contaminated Dare’s tank, and she never fully recovered.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Frank Perdue, 84, died on March 31 at
home in Salisbury, Maryland. His father,
Arthur Perdue, started an egg farm in the year
that Frank Perdue was born. After leukosis
killed their 2,000 leghorns in the early 1940s,
they switched to raising broiler hens, began
developing factory-style protection methods, and
prospered during the World War II meat shortage.
Frank Perdue took over the $6 million a year
business in 1952. Annual revenues were up to $56
million in 1970, when Perdue introduced the
Perdue Farms brand name to supermarkets,
appearing in approximately 200 TV commercials
during the next 24 years to promote it. By 1991
Perdue Farms was the third largest poultry firm
in the U.S., worth $1.2 billion a year. In
April 1997, Animal Rights International founder
Henry Spira asked Perdue to lead the way in
reducing the suffering to poultry that results
from factory farming. After Perdue ignored
repeated requests from Spira, Spira in October

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Becky Louise, 14, among the last survivors of the 1991-1992
ANIMAL PEOPLE test of neuter/return feral cat control in northern
Fairfield County, Connecticut, died peacefully and unexpectedly on
March 26. She was one of two indistinguishable littermates who were
named after Alley Cat Allies cofounders Becky Robinson and Louise
Holton. As the owner of the apartment complex where the cats were
trapped did not want them returned, and they were not adoptable
because they could not be handled, Becky and Louise were among 21
cats from the neuter/ return test who were evacuated in July 1992 to
the first ANIMAL PEOPLE headquarters near Shushan, New York, along
with 10 previously rescued cats. In August 1992 a female coyote who
had lost a front paw, probably in escaping from a leghold trap, ate
nine of the feral cats, in as many days. As either Becky or Louise
was among the coyote victims, but we did not know which, the
survivor became Becky Louise. Becky Louise then moved, by her
choice, into the house from the basement with outdoor access that
had been been adapted into a habitat for the ferals. Relocated with
ANIMAL PEOPLE and all the other surviving cats in 1996 to Clinton,
Washington, Becky Louise never tamed, never groomed herself, and
required heavy sedation before her squirrel-sized mats could be
shaved off. Probably because of her poor hygiene, Becky Louise had
low status among the cats, though she was tolerated by all. Since
the death of her twin sister, Becky Louise had only one close
friend, Miriam, another shy feral whom ANIMAL PEOPLE rescued in
2003. Among the 320 cats involved in the 1991-1992 Connecticut
project, the known survivors are Sombra and Punto, kept by ANIMAL
PEOPLE webmaster Patrice Greanville, and Rosalba, Peetee, and
Sylvie, still with ANIMAL PEOPLE. There may be other survivors
among the 45 cats who were adopted out. To our awareness, the last
of the 237 cats who were returned to their habitat either died or
were tamed and adopted by mid-1995.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2005:

Andre Norton, 93, died on March 17 from congestive heart
failure at her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, attended by
longtime caretaker Sue Stewart.
Born Alice Mary Norton, in Cleveland, Ohio, Andre Norton
changed her name to evade discrimination against female authors in
1934, when she published The Prince Commands, the second novel she
wrote. Her first, Ralestone Luck, appeared in 1938.
Employed in the Cleveland Public Library children’s section
until 1950, except in 1941 when she owned a bookstore in Maryland
and briefly worked for the Library of Congress, Norton at first
wrote exclusively for the young audience she knew best. Two years
after becoming a manuscript reader for Gnome Press, a science
fiction publisher, Norton produced Star Man’s Son (1952), her first
attempt at sci-fi. Reissued by Ace Books as Daybreak–2250 A.D., it
became her first mass market paperback hit.
After several more sci-fi successes, Norton left Gnome Press
to write fulltime in 1958. To that point, science fiction targeted
mostly male readers; fantasy was written for females. Norton
mingled the genre in The Beast Master (1959), introducing both the
style that would characterize the most productive phase of her
career, and the motif of telepathic communication among animals and
humans that recurs in most of her biggest hits.

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