From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2011:

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The
evil that men do lives after them. The good is
oft interred with their bones.” –William
Shakespeare
Princess Antoinette Monegasque of Monaco,
90, died on March 18, 2011 at the Princess
Grace Hospital in Monaco. The elder sister of
Prince Rainier of Monaco, Antoinette was best
known during the first two-thirds of her life for
involvement in scandalous liaisons, failed
marriages, the death of her third husband–ten
years younger than she –after just six weeks of
marriage, and a failed attempt to put her three
children born from wedlock ahead of Rainier in
the royal succession. Exiled from Monaco in the

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:
 
“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do
lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”
–William Shakespeare
 

Fateh Singh Rathore, 79, died on March 1, 2011, two weeks
after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Worldwide Fund
for Nature in recognition of 50 years of work to protect Indian
tigers. The son of a police officer, “Tiger Man” Rathore became a
forest ranger at the Alwar Game Reserve, now Sariska National Park,
circa 1955. In January 1961 Rathore was sent to the nearby Sawai
Madhopur Game Sanctuary to organize a tiger shoot for Queen Elizabeth
II of Great Britain and her husband Prince Philip. This experience

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2011:

Knut, 4, a polar bear who was rejected by his mother soon
after birth at the Berlin Zoo on December 5, 2006, but was raised
by his keepers, died suddenly on March 19, 2011 from unknown
causes. “He was by himself in his compound, he was in the water,
and then he was dead,” bear keeper Heiner Kloes told Associated
Press. “He was not sick. We don’t know why he died,” pending a
necropsy that was to be done on March 28. Knut’s first chief
keeper, Thomas Doerflein, 44, was found dead in his apartment of a
heart attack on September 22, 2008. A 25-year Berlin Zoo employee,
Doerflein from March 2007 to July 2007 exhibited Knut to the public
in a popular play-wrestling act. The act ended when zoo management
decided that Knut had become too large for Doerflein to play with
safely. The “Cute Knut” phenomenon reportedly boosted Berlin Zoo
attendance by 27% in 2007, and increased revenues by $10 million.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:

Kaankata, 35, an Indian rhino who lost an ear to a
poacher’s bullet and afterward charged humans on sight, died
peaceably in Orang National Park on February 16, 2011. Kaankata
once destroyed a forestry official’s car, and another time chased a
poacher for two kilometers, division forest officer Sushil Daila
told The Telegraph, of Kolkata.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2011:

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do
lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.”
–William Shakespeare
Dick King-Smith, 88, died in his sleep on January 4, 2011
at his home near Bath, England. Smith turned to writing after World
War II military service, 20 years of farming, stints selling
firefighting equipment and working in a shoe factory, and finally
teaching, after he completed a degree in education at Bristol
University at age 53 in 1975. King-Smith’s first of more than 100
books, The Fox Busters, appeared in 1978. Concerning three
chickens who repeatedly foil the efforts of foxes to eat them, The
Fox Busters inspired a 26-episode Cosgrove Hall animated TV series of
the same name, aired in 1999-2000. King-Smith’s books, mostly
about talking animals, sold more than 15 million copies in all. The

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

“I come to bury Caesar,  not to praise him.  The evil that men do lives after them.  The good is oft interred with their bones.” –William Shakespeare

Patricia Simonet,  51,  died of cancer on December 2,  2010. Earning a Ph.D. in animal behavior at the University of Nevada, Simonet from 1992 to 2000 researched topics including what children learn from live animal shows,  chimpanzee play,  and elephant self-recognition in mirrors.   Then,  recalled Robert Brost,  her husband of 26 years,  “While researching the meaning of sounds that dogs make,  she discovered dog laughter,”  the happy panting that characterizes dogs at play.  Hired by Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Services in 2003 to do temperament testing and training, Simonet in 2005 demonstrated that playing recorded dog laughter in the shelter helped to calm the dogs and increased the adoption rate of adoptions.  Brost and Simonet subsequently marketed dog laughter recordings,  which are typically played at less than the threshold of human hearing.   “While Trisha worked for SCRAPS,  she also volunteered at the Spokane Humane Society,”  Brost said,  “training their volunteers and serving on their board of directors.”  The Spokane County Board of Supervisors in June 2010 designated an off-leash area at Gateway Regional Park the Patricia Simonet Laughing Dog Park. Read more