A Project of Animal People, Inc., 1992-2013
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:
In fond remembrance of Steve Siegel, passionately
devoted and highly effective animal
rights activist. You made a huge difference,
and continue to inspire me daily. Thank you!
––Jill Breslauer
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1998:
Joanne Boyle, 42, of Quincy,
California, was killed by an automobile as
she crossed the road on March 21, while
traveling in Nevada. From her late teens and
for 10 years thereafter, Boyle worked for the
late Pegeen Fitzgerald’s Vivisection
Investigation League. On her own, Boyle
promoted cat adoptions. Beginning in the
summer of 1975, Boyle was an enthusiastic
participant in the 18-month campaign which
stopped the American Museum of Natural
History’s cat sex experiments––the first
major victory over vivisection in the modern
history of the animal rights movement.
Boyle created some of the most imaginative
posters and was an active demonstrator. She
was both committed and creative, and a good
friend, missed by all whom she touched.
––Henry Spira
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1998:
Mary Richard, 33, director of the
Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Sanctuary in
Oyster Bay, New York, was killed late on
February 25 when her companion, sanctuary
operations manager Michael Brust, 23,
wrecked the sanctuary minivan. Brust,
whom Richard hired after he worked at the
sanctuary for several years as a teenaged volunteer,
was charged with driving while
intoxicated and driving with a suspended
license. Richard “was a bird watcher and
lover of nature since she was a child,” her
sister Christine Palmer told Al Baker of
Newsday. The National Audubon Society
hired Richard to run the sanctuary in 1991.
“It is the oldest Audubon sanctuary in the
U.S., so for her to be in charge of it was a
major accomplishment,” said National
Audubon Society president John Bianchi.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1998:
Max Corkill, 50, his motorcycling
cat Rastus, and sidecar passenger
Gaynor Martin, 48, died on January 20
about twenty miles from their home in New
Plymouth, New Zealand, when a car hit
them head-on. Corkill found Rastus about
nine years ago as an abandoned kitten at a
motorcycling meet in Canada. They moved
from Canada to New Zealand in 1994, but
planned to return to Canada this year with
Martin. Riding everywhere with Corkill in a
custom-made zipper pouch, Rastus was a
major fundraiser for the Royal New Zealand
SPCA. “Max and Rastus were completely
irreplaceable,” mourned RNZSPCA committee
chair Jackie Poles. Hundreds of bikers
turned out for their funeral.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, Jan/Feb 1998:
Howard Gilman, 73, patron of
the White Oak Conservation Center, at the
White Oak Plantation in Yulee, Florida, died
at the plantation of a heart attack on January
3. Gilman, grandson of Gilman Paper
Company founder Isaac Gilman, took over
the firm in 1973, building it into the largest
privately held producer of paper and building
products in the U.S. He formed the Howard
Gilman Foundation in 1981, becoming
known as a major patron of dance, the visual
arts, and cardiology and AIDS research––but
the Conservation Center, one of his first projects
and one of those of lowest profile, may
have had the most influence, showing
zookeepers the value of space, privacy, and
natural habitat in breeding endangered
species. The center has been instrumental in
breeding captive populations of highly endangered
African and Asian rhinos, cheetahs,
maned wolves, okapis, antelopes, and wild
cattle, and hosted efforts to save the Florida
panther via captive breeding. It also funds
habitat protection in the animals’ native countries.
The work continues under longtime
Conservation Center and plantation general
manager John Lukas, who is outspoken in his
belief that keeping animals in close confinement
is cruelty and should be seen as such.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1997:
William “Sonny” Allen, 53, vice
president and general curator of Marine
World Africa USA, died after a brief illness
on September 2 in Vallejo, California. As a
psychology student pursuing a career in helping
the mentally handicapped, Allen studied
operant conditioning. “After serving in the
military,” his professional biography stated,
“Sonny became a diver for the Philadelphia
Aquarama, 1964-1968, and started applying
his knowledge of psychology to sick and
injured pilot whales and dolphins. He trained
these animals to allow medical procedures to
be performed on them without the use of
restraints.” Allen began a longtime close
association with the orca Yaka shortly after
becoming head trainer of marine mammals
for Marine World in 1969, just before her
arrival from Puget Sound. He briefly left
Marine World in mid-1974 to become head
trainer at the New England Aquarium, but
returned as director of marine mammals later
that year. Allen was a founding member of
the International Marine Animal Trainers
Association. Also a seventh degree Kempo
Karate black belt, Allen taught self-defense
for more than 30 years, and throughout his
life volunteered for organizations helping
disturbed children and battered women.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1997:
A. Peter Rasmussen, 76, died of
lung cancer on August 19. Born in Utah,
after service in the Army he became a professional
singer and toured the country. The last
25 years of his life were devoted to animal
welfare. Having traveled to Africa, he met
Joy Adamson, whose life was subject of the
movie Born Free, and soon after became one
of the founding members of the U.S. Born
Free Foundation chapter. He was involved
with Tippi Hedren’s ROAR Foundation,
which funds the Shambala Preserve, housing
more than 60 wild and exotic cats. Since the
early 1980s he had worked as secretary to
Gretchen Wyler, president of The Ark Trust
Inc., and became its secretary when the organization
was formed in 1991. “To me,”
Wyler told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “the loss is
profound. He gave the phrase ‘Take a letter’
new meaning. When I said, ‘Take a letter,’ I
meant, ‘Take it home and answer it.’ He
knew my thoughts, and often he expressed
them better than I could.” Peter was the official
secretary of all 11 Genesis Award celebrations,
an annual event honoring the
media, presented by The Ark Trust.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1997:
Diana, Princess of Wales, 36,
killed August 30 with her companion Emad
Mohamed al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul in a
Paris car crash, was recalled by fine arts portrateur
Elaine Livesay-Fassell as “The first
person in the British royal family who would
not hunt, shoot, or wear fur, the first who
spoke out about kindness to animals” since
Queen Victoria endorsed the Royal SPCA
and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
at request of Prince Albert in the 19th century.
“It was unfortunately not mentioned in
all the tributes to Diana,” Best Friends
Animal Sanctuary cofounder Michael
Mountain told the 1997 No Kill Conference
in his plenary address, “that the very first of
the rifts in the royal family that led to her
divorce came when she refused to hunt, and
did not want her sons to hunt.” Diana was
reputedly a vegetarian by inclination, with
frequent lapses, and PETA published a note
from Buckingham Palace affirming her opposition
to fur as part of an anti-fur ad, but
ANIMAL PEOPLE was unable to find documentation
of any specific statements she
might have made about animals, nor of her
direct participation in animal causes. “Diana
was widely rumored to dissapprove of bloodsports,”
said Kevin Saunders, chair of the
League Against Cruel Sports, “and it was
thought she was unhappy with Prince Charles
for introducing their sons to all known legal
forms of blood sport, but it was never more
than a rumor. Diana, to the best of my
knowledge, never involved herself in any
animal welfare work, not even with the
Royal SPCA,” as the RSPCA confirmed.
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 1997:
Bruno Zehnder, 52, of Manhattan,
froze to death in an Antarctic blizzard
circa July 7, returning from an expedition to
photograph breeding emperor penguins.
Zehnder was reportedly about a mile from
safety at Mirnyy Station, a Russian research
base which he had missed by 50 yards despite
flares set out to guide him. Born in Bad
Rogov, Switzerland, Zehnder emigrated to
New York City in 1977, after making his
first international reputation with photographs
of Vietnam after the Vietnam War, but his
real home was Antarctica, where he lived
much of each year at the bases of Chile, New
Zealand, the U.S., Denmark, and Russia.
Zehnder married Heather May of New York
City in 1984 at Marambio, an Argentinian
research station, surrounded by tuxedo-clad
penguins––but the marriage lasted just three
years, as the penguins seemed to be his more
enduring love. “His frequent sojourns in
Antarctica resulted in photos that won several
prizes,” The New York Times r e m e m b e r e d ,
among them the 1987 United Nations
Environmental Protection Prize, the 1990
BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year
award, and election to the Royal Geographic
Society. “One of his most widely published
pictures was of a pair of emperor penguins in
tender embrace with a chick between them,”
the T i m e s recalled. “Another, made last
year, was of a mother emperor penguin trying
vainly to feed her chick, whose beak had
frozen closed.” The photo helped draw international
attention to the threat of global
warming to penguin survival.