From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2004:

Sodade, a loggerhead sea turtle tagged with a radio
transmitter and tracked via satellite by the Marine Turtle Resarch
Group at the University of Exeter in Cornwall, U.K., was apparently
poached on August 25, 2004 off Cape Verde, an archipelago west of
Africa. “We started to receive an unusually large number of very
high quality location signals from Sodade,” researcher Brendan
Godley explained. “Such signals are received when a turtle spends
large amounts of time at the surface, suggesting she was likely on
the deck of a boat. Then the transmissions ceased, suggesting that
her transmitter was removed and dumped. Given the large number of
turtles captured for food in Cape Verde and the presence of fishing
boats in the area at the time, we think we know her fate.”

Peipei, 33, the oldest known panda in the world, died on
August 13 at the Hangzhou City Zoo in eastern China.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Spetember 2004:

Dan Knapp, 49, died unexpectedly on August 1, 2004.
Longtime friend Warren Cox told ANIMAL PEOPLE that he understood
Knapp suffered a heart attack while mowing his lawn. An ordained
minister, Knapp led churches in Piedmont, San Jose, Santa Monica,
and Huntingon Park, California, and handled inventory control for a
Silicon Valley maker of mass spectrometers, before finding his
calling in 1988-1989 as executive director of the Humane Society of
Humboldt County. Moving to the somewhat larger Humane Society of
Sonoma County in 1990, Knapp achieved an economic turnaround,
markedly reduced animal control killing, and formed effective
alliances with cat rescuers, dog breed rescue clubs, local
children’s services, and animal rights groups. Knapp was recruited
in July 1998 to become general manager of the Los Angeles Department
of Animal Regulation. Knapp in March 2000 persuaded the Los Angeles
city council to adopt one of the widest differentials on record in
the cost of licensing sterilized v.s. unsterilized pets. A favorite
of animal rights activists, Knapp otherwise ran into conflict and
controversy in Los Angeles, most memorably when he attributed a
controversial mid-2000 roundup of free-roaming dogs to preparation
for the Democratic National Convention, and was rebuked by Mayor
Richard Riordan. An epileptic since 1996, Knapp was fired by
Riordan’s successor, James K. Hahn, in October 2001, after a
prolonged medical absence. He subsequently sued Los Angeles for
alleged discrimination based on his epileptic condition. In January
2002 he became executive director of the Capital Area Humane Society
in Columbus, Ohio, where–as in Sonoma County–he won praise from
all quarters. “Dan was an important advocate for animals and people
in our community,” said CAHS board president Becky Johnson. “He was
committed to preventing animal and human violence through
intervention and community education. Dan provided exemplary
leadership, and will be difficult to replace.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

Shopper, 6, a California sea lion who swam up the Napa
River to visit a Petaluma motorcycle shop, was shot circa July 5 by
an unknown person near Benessere Vineyards, north of St. Helena.
Captured by Marine Mammal Center staff after his first swim inland,
Shopper was released on June 22 at Point Reyes National Seashore,
but returned upriver the next day. Napa radio station KVON raised a
reward fund of $12,500 for the conviction of his killer.

Tina, 34, an Asian elephant born at the Oregon Zoo, kept
at the Greater Vancou-ver Zoo 1972-2003, died suddenly on July 21,
2004 at the Elephant Sanctuary at Hohenwald, Tennessee, her home
since August 2003, much missed by two companions.

A.J., 12, the bloodhound who inspired Kat Albrecht to use
dogs to track lost pets, died on July 7. “His history included many
searches for criminals and lost people,” Albrecht wrote. “In 1998,
A.J. was retired from police work due to hip displasia, and moved
straight into tracking pets. On his first search he found a missing
diabetic cat named Marmalade in less than eight minutes. He received
hip replacement surgery in 1999 and lived afterward in relative
comfort. A.J. was featured in the PBS program Dogs With Jobs., and
in the PAX program Miracle Pets (now shown on Animal Planet as Animal
Miracles). Several of his searches are featured in The Lost Pet
Chronicles,” reviewed on page 20.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004:

Bonny Shah, 58, died on July 28, 2004, in Dallas, after
a long battle with leukemia. She married electrical engineer Ratilal
Shah, a Jain from Gujarat, India, in 1968. Unable to find work as
a teacher, she started a business called Maharani, importing
hand-crafted dog collars and other gift items from India, “but
instead of selling the collars, she used them to bring rescued dogs
home,” Rati Shah told ANIMAL PEOPLE. He joined Maharani in 1975,
three years after the birth of their son Noah. The firm found a
niche supplying animal-theme items to zoo gift shops. As it grew,
the Shahs hired ever-increasing numbers of Indian artisans. They
built a school in India that was among the first to teach computer
skills as part of the curriculum, a human birth control clinic that
performs 200 sterilizations per year, and a general-purpose clinic
serving 30 villages that treats 18,000 patients per year without
charge. In exchange for donating 20 computers to the school the
Shahs built, Bonny Shah won a pledge that the school will look after
several dogs she rescued throughout their lives. At the Shahs’ home
in Bartonville, Texas, they founded the Ahimsa of Texas sanctuary,
managed by Bonny’s parents, Lou and Evelyn Karstadt, who continue
in her memory. “Bonny loved donkeys. She wanted to do more for
donkeys,” Rati Shah continued, “so in India we created the Dharma
Donkey Sanctuary,” now supervised by Visakha SPCA founder Pradeep
Kumar Nath. “With the help of the Blue Cross of India,” Rati Shah
said, “we treat 2,500 donkeys there at donkey camps held every six
months.” Bonny Shah also sponsored humane education and feral cat
rescue work by Kat Chaplin, the Dallas-based “Neuteress of the
Night.” Chaplin introduced the Shahs to ANIMAL PEOPLE in January
1998. During the next six years Bonny Shah contributed profiles of
the Bishnoi people of the Rajasthan desert, whose Jain-like faith
emphasizes kindness toward animals; the Donkey Sanctuary, in
England; and the Wildlife SOS and Friendicoes sanctuaries in India.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Ronald Reagan, 93, U.S. President 1980-1988, died on June
5, 2003 at home in Los Angeles. Recalled Best Friends Animal
Society cofounder Michael Mountain, “Dwight Eisenhower put in the
White House putting green, and had the squirrels trapped and removed
because, he said, they were ruining it. Jimmy Carter also tried to
relocate them because they were damaging the trees. But Ronald
Reagan would squirrel away acorns that he collected from Camp David
and keep them in his desk drawer, and the squirrels would sit
outside the Oval Office waiting for a handout. Some would eat the
acorns right out of his hand. George H. Bush scrapped the Reagan
policy and announced that the squirrels were “history,” sending his
dog Millie to chase them away. Bill Clinton continued the Bush
policy. The current President Bush has allowed his dogs to chase
them, too.” Reagan introduced 25 years of White House antipathy
toward the Endangered Species Act, which he considered an intrusion
on private property rights, but endorsed the Doris Day Animal
League, in honor of his co-star in several films, near the end of
his years in public life.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2004:

Jo-Bars Maggie Mae, 8, died on March 10, 2004. A black
Labrador retriever purchased by Joe Maringo of Plum, Pennsylvania,
as a breeding bitch and duck dog, Maggie hated to swim, but raised
four litters in five years before Maringo found out about pet
ovrpopulation and had her spayed within a week. Maringo went on to
found the Southwest Pennsylvania Retriever Rescue Organization. “It
was Maggy’s love that has caused me to save over 250 unwanted
companions and place them in happy homes,” Maringo wrote. “I hope I
can live up to being just half the man she thought I was.”

Beethoven, 2, & Cujo, 1, father-and-son St. Bernards kept
by Walter Smith and his daughter Elizabeth, were on June 16
euthanized by Macomb County Animal Control under the rarely invoked
1919 Michigan livestock protection act. The dogs killed two llamas,
a sheep, a pig, and a 600-pound steer, and raided a henhouse, in a
series of attacks ranging over miles of countryside between October
2003 and April 2004, before a county roadkill collector saw them
returning home from one of their raids.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

John “Jack” O’Brien, believed to be in his early seventies,
died on April 30, 2004 in Plymouth, Massachusetts. A former Roman
Catholic priest, who married former novice turned flamboyant animal
rights activist Dorothy Checci, O’Brien “was always in the
background, but his presence was felt. Jack was Dorothy’s #1
supporter,” said longtime friend Gayle Fitzpatrick. After Dorothy
Checci-O’Brien died at age 70 in August 2001, Jack O’Brien “tried to
continue her work, but was wheelchair-bound after several strokes,”
Fitzpatrick added.

Virginia Denton, 78, died on January 24, 2004. Born in
Brooklyn, spending much of her life in Ohio, Denton relocated to
Brooksville, Florida in 1982, where she and her husband Jim founded
the Compassion Spay/Neuter fund and volunteered for the Herandon
County Humane Society. She is survived by her husband, two sons,
and a daughter.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2004:

Purr Box Jr., 17, tiger tabby cat of Mary Wilkinson of
Stamford, Connecticut, died on May 1. A portrait of Purr Box Jr.
appeared on page 1 of the March 10, 2004 edition of The Wall Street
Journal, beneath the headline “Purr Box goes to communion at St.
Francis Episcopal.”

Kathy, 34, the oldest female beluga whale in captivity,
was euthanized on April 9, 2004 at the New York Aquarium due to
incurable illness. Born in the Churchill River in northern Manitoba,
Kathi came to the aquarium in 1974. She gave birth twice, in 1981
and 1991. Both infants lived longer, at the time, than any others
born in captivity. Her 1991 calf, Casey, survived to age eight.

Yoda, a genetically modified dwarf mouse, died in his cage
on April 22 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, at age four
years and 12 days, the oldest lab mouse on record. He was a third
smaller than the average mouse, with heightened sensitivity toward
cold because of limited ability to hold his own body heat.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

Shelby Dow, 56, died on December 24, 2003 in Teaneck, New
Jersey, of a coronary occlusion. Starting as a sheriff’s deputy in
Salt Lake County, Utah, Dow transferred to animal control and in
1978 became animal control director. “Shelby and I worked together
when the National Animal Control Association was getting organized,
and collaborated on a 1981 research study of why people relinquish
animals to shelters,” recalled longtime friend Phil Arkow. After a
stint as vice president of NACA, Dow spent two years with the
American Humane Association. “In 1985, he was recruited as vice
president of the American SPCA in New York City,” the Salt Lake
City Deseret News recalled. “There he oversaw operations in all five
boroughs.” Dow eventually left employment in animal welfare, but his
“commitment to animals continued until his death,” the Deseret News
continued. “He was a consultant to Psychologists for the Ethical
Treat-ment of Animals, and had just organized Animal PAC,” to
promote pro-animal condidates. “His family will continue Animal PAC
in his memory,” the Deseret News said.

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