From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2001:
Gunther Gebel-Williams, 66, died on July 19 from cancer, at home in Venice, Florida. Born in Germany as Gunther Gebel in 1934, Gebel-Williams was the son of a circus seamstress and a theatrical set builder who resisted the Nazis even after being drafted into the Wehrmacht. Gebel-Williams’ mother got him a job with the Harry Williams circus at age 13; he later took Williams’ surname as a gesture of appreciation. Gebel-Williams trained horses, elephants, tigers, and leopards for Williams until 1968, when Ringling Brothers bought the Williams circus to acquire his skills.

Recalled New York Times obituarist Richard Severo, “Gebel-Williams was the principal heir-apparent to the tradition of Clyde Beatty, who dominated the U.S. circus scene in the mid-20th century by walking into cages filled with huge cats armed with a chair, a whip, and sometimes a revolver. Gebel-Williams had no use for chairs or pistols or anything else that would threaten or injure his animals. Only 5’4″, he used his voice and bits of meat to make sure they understood when he was pleased.” Injured by animals many times, Gebel-Williams gave more than 12,000 performances without ever missing a call or allowing any of his animals to be killed for their deeds. “If you do right by animals,” he said, “and do not become careless, they will do the right thing in return. One can never be so certain about people.” He kept the pelts of his favorite animals on the floor of his home, but did not allow anyone to step on them. “We walk around them out of respect,” he explained, “because they are not trophies but dear old friends.” He last performed in 1998.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

Human Obituaries

Dennis Puleston, 95, founding chair of the Environmental Defense Fund, died on June 8 at his home in Brookhaven, New York. Born in Britain, Puleston was already “an avid naturalist and skilled painter of birds” according to New York Times obituarist Paul Lewis, when he sailed a small boat to the U.S. in 1931 with a friend. He sailed on to China by 1937, before the outbreak of World War II forced his return to Britain. His 1939 marriage to Betty Wellington of New York sent him back to the U.S. as a permanent resident.

In 1942 Puleston helped to design the “Duck” amphibious landing craft, then trained Allied Forces to use it. Puleston personally participated in amphibious operations in the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and Burma; trained the D-Day “Duck” drivers in Britain after recovering from a spinal wound; and joined in the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. For his “Duck” work, Puleston was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1948 by President Harry S. Truman.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:
Warren D. Thomas, DVM, 70, died from a sudden illness on a
March 17 trip to Brunei. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Thomas
was a junior keeper at the Columbus Zoo when he helped to deliver the
first gorilla known to have been born in captivity, and was profiled
in Life magazine. Thomas became director of the Oklahoma City Zoo in
1951, at age 21, and built it into a major institution by 1965,
when he moved to the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha. After planning
significant expansion, Thomas in 1970 planned, built, and became
first director of the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas. That
brought a 1974 invitation from then-Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley to
preside over the Griffith Park Zoo, now known as the Los Angeles
Zoo. By 1982 Thomas had expanded the Los Angeles collection to
include more than 500 species. As public attitudes toward zoos
evolved, and the old “menagerie” approach began to yield to an
emphasis on conservation of endangered species, Thomas committed the
Los Angeles Zoo to participation in the California condor recovery
program, and founded the Sumatran Rhinoceros Trust. But his Los
Angeles tenure was marked by running feuds with the fundraising Los
Angeles Zoo Association, the Humane Society of the U.S., and his
boss, city Recreation and Parks director James Hadaway, beginning
when Hadaway suspended him for five days for allegedly mishandling
ivory. Hadaway fired Thomas in June 1986 for reportedly using racial
epithets, neglecting records of animal transfers, and
misappropriating zoo supplies. Thomas won reinstatement and $170,000
in back pay plus legal costs, but resigned in October 1990 during a
dispute with the city over his management of a slush fund and failure
to comply with USDA orders to address a variety of sanitation,
drainage, insect, and rodent problems. In recent years, Thomas
did zoological consulting and lectured aboard cruise ships.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2001:

#346, 22, reputedly the smartest and most prolific
livestock killer among all Montana male grizzlies, and one of the
oldest wild male grizzlies on record, was killed on April 18 at the
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks laboratory in
Bozeman. He apparently learned to kill cattle from a female, #316,
circa 1984. They were trapped and tattooed together in 1985. #316
was shot for continued cattle-killing in 1987, but #346 went on to
devour an estimated $200,000 worth of livestock, evading 13 years of
determined efforts to kill him. “This was a smart bear,”
understated biologist Mike Madel. The USDA Wildlife Services
trappers who finally brought him in agreed that they would probably
never have nabbed him if he had not been slowed by conditions of age.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2001:

Animal Obituaries

Clearpath, a peregrine falcon who had lived on the Bond Court office building in downtown Cleveland, was widowed during the winter and tried to move to the Terminal Tower nesting box used for the past two years by another peregrine, Zenith. They met in a March 23 duel to the death partially captured by FalconCam (www.falconcam.apk.net).

Carhartt, a member of Anchorage Daily News reporter Jon Little’s Iditarod Trail racing team, died abruptly on March 9 in Eagle River from a rare bacterial infection, four days after Little left him with co-worker Melissa DeVaughn because he seemed too tired to go on. Carhartt was among two dogs who died during the 2001 Iditarod. Several other dogs were injured when their teams were run over by snowmobilers.

Igor, two-and-a-half, a member of Nenana musher Carrie Farr’s Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race team, on February 19 became the second of two dogs to die mysteriously near the Eagle checkpoint.

Robby, 8, the lame U.S. Marine Corps bomb-sniffing dog whose plight inspired a new federal law to let the U.S. military retire old working dogs, was euthanized on January 19 due to severe arthritis.

Papa, 53, reputedly the oldest Nile hippo in captivity, was euthanized due to multiple painful conditions of age on February 26 at the Dallas Zoo, his home of 40 years.

Misty, 24, the last Atlantic bottlenose dolphin at the Mystic Aquarium in Stonington, Connecticut, died on March 15 from complications of a bacterial infection. Her death came two months after that of her companion, Stormy, 5, who was rescued in 1998 after he lost his mother in a tropical storm, suffered serious shark bites, and washed ashore near Port Aransas, Texas. He was saved by members of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, who had to
hold him afloat to enable him to breathe.

Destiny, a nine-day-old dolphin calf born to Dophin Research Center resident Aleta, but on March 6 quickly passed to Tursi, another pregnant dolphin, suddenly died in the arms of her caretakers on March 15. Though Aleta showed no interest in Destiny, Tursi reportedly made every effort to nurse Destiny as if she were her own calf.

Mr. Mags, a striped dolphin who became separated from his mother, died on March 13 at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, Florida, where he was sent to receive longterm care. Volunteers at the Virginia Marine Science Museum kept him alive for six days after finding him stranded.

Sophie, a female coyote who was radio-collared last fall in Presque Isle State Park, Michigan, was found roadkilled circa March 20 in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, near Cleveland, about 80 miles from Presque Isle.

Severino, 20, the last wild Sphix macaw, has not been seen since September and is presumed dead after repeated usuccessful searches of his habitat in the Curaca region of northeastern Brazil. There are 66 Sphix macaws in captivity, six of them in Brazil.

Martha-One-Wing, the misnamed male bald eagle who for 15 years was traveling ambassador for the Arkansas and U.S. Eagle Awareness Programs, died on January 26 at the home of Jane and Tom Gulley, his caretakers ever since he was found with a crippling gunshot wound in 1978.

Jiggs, 35, a Bornean orangutan captured from the wild in 1966, resident at the Seneca Park Zoo since 1992, died from a stroke on January 17. Jiggs was noted for his gentle play with young orangutans.

Sonny, 21, an African elephant captured in Zimbabwe during a cull at about age 2, died on February 22 at the Popcorn Park Zoo, the exotic animal care facility of the Associated Humane Societies of New Jersey. Popcorn Park director John Bergmann became Sonny’s caregiver after keepers at several other zoos found Sonny too hard to  handle.

Smokey, 29, brought to the Oakland Zoo from Kruger National Park in South Africa in 1975, died on March 11. Among the few successful stud bulls among the U.S. captive African elephant herd, Smokey sired four offspring, but none lived longer than 11 months. In 1991 Smokey kicked to death 25-year veteran handler Lorne Jackson, of Hayward, causing the Oakland Zoo to go to the “protected contact” style of elephant keeping.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2001:
Human Obituaries

David McTaggart, 69, was killed in a head-on car crash on March 23 in Umbria, Italy. Born in Vancouver, B.C., McTaggart won the Canadian singles badminton championship three years straight, 1950-1952. He founded a construction firm at age 23, and built the Bear Valley ski resort in California, but quit the business after he was nearly bankrupted by liabilities resulting from a 1969 gas explosion. He spent the next few years sailing his yacht Vega. In 1972 he answered an ad placed by an organization called the Don’t Make A Wave Committee, formed in 1970 by Quaker activists Jim Bohlen, Paul Cote, and Irving Stowe. Having already sailed into U.S. nuclear testing zones twice to protest atmospheric explosions, they were now seeking a boat to sail into Mururoa atoll in French Polynesia to protest against French atomic blasts. McTaggert took the job, renamed his boat the Greenpeace III, and introduced a more confrontational style of protest. The group metamorphized into Greenpeace by year’s end, with McTaggert, Don’t Make A Wave crew members Bob Hunter and Patrick Moore, and 19-year-old Paul Watson as charter members.

Initially Greenpeace remained focused on nuclear weapons, but former Vancouver Aquarium researcher Paul Spong,
Hunter, Moore, and Watson in 1975 led them into opposition to Japanese and Russian whaling. The anti-whaling campaign captured the public imagination, enabling Watson to talk the others into opposing the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt as well. McTaggert, however, continued to favor environmental action over animal-saving. Watson left in 1977 to form the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Thereafter, McTagg-ert was the dominant figure in building Greenpeace into a global empire with 3.5 million members worldwide at peak in 1990 (now down to 2.7 million), and annual income of $112 million. Although opposition to whaling remained central to the activity of several overseas chapters, the U.S. and Canadian chapters took softer positions and became gradually less involved. McTaggert retired from Greenpeace in 1991 and spent his last years producing olive oil in Italy.

Alan Blank, 62, of Des Moines, Iowa, who was building a zoo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on March 8 vanished after a morning meeting with an American business associate who was killed in a traffic accident the following morning. Blank is believed to have met foul play.

Wilfred T. Neill Jr., 79, a noted herpetologist, died on February 19. “His health had declined steadily since his 41st
poisonous snakebite in 1978,” recalled Cornell University colleague Kraig Adler.

Richard Hughes, 34, an elephant keeper at the Chester Zoo in England, was crushed against a wall on February 8 by Kumara, 34, a female Asian elephant who had reportedly become difficult on many recent occasions. “Richard ate, slept, and breathed elephants,” recalled his father.

Nathan Mitchell, 33, an animal control officer for the past six years in Biloxi, Mississippi, after spending eight years as an animal technician, was so engrossed in trying to coax a loose pit bull terrier to come to him on March 6 that he apparently never heard the CSX Transportation freight train that ran him over. He left a son, Nathan Jr., age 6.

Lim Chang San, 75, of Pahang, Malaysia, locally known for his love of animals, on March 6 dug a water buffalo out of a pit on an oil palm plantation into which the animal had fallen. His employer, Lau Aie Ma, 51, saw the buffalo escape, walk a few steps, then turn and gore Lim. Lau suffered multiple injuries while trying to save Lim, and might have been killed himself if five orang asli villagers had not come to his aid.

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 2001:
Noah, a two-day old Asian gaur cloned from a single gaur cell implanted into a cow’s egg, died from common dysentery on January 10 at TransOva Genetics, of Des Moines, Iowa. Noah was the first successfully cloned member of an endangered species.

Rachel, 11, a Weimeraner search dog trained by now-American Humane Association emergency relief manager Kathy Albrecht while Albrecht was a police dog handler, and handled in recent years by pet detective Becky Hiatt, was euthanized due to an inoperable brain tumor on January 8. In 96 investigations, Albrecht recalled, Rachel found 18 cats, 13 dogs, and physical evidence relevant to 14 other cases.

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