From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  January/February 2011:

Animal Obituaries

Old Man,  32,  a naked mole rat born in Kenya,  died on Thanksgiving morning 2010 at the Barshop Institute for Longevity & Aging Studies on the Texas Research Park campus near San Antonio. Old Man was the senior member of the University of Texas Health Science Center’s colony of about 2,000 naked mole rats.  Captured with 75 kin in a sweet potato field in 1980 by physiologist Rochelle Buffenstein,  Old Man traveled with Buffenstein to the University of Cape Town in South Africa,  then to the City College of New York in Harlem,  arriving in San Antonio in 2007.  Naked mole rats,  who live to an average age of 26,  “in many ways confound what scientists think they know about how diseases progress and why living things age,”  Buffenstein told Richard A. Marini of the San Antonio Express News.  For example,  naked mole rats rarely develop cancer,  and although they develop the same type of brain plaque found in Alzheimer’s disease victims,  they do not suffer similar cognitive decline. Read more

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

Spunk, 10, a therapy dog kept by a 75-year-old retired
teacher in Taman Merdeka, Ipoh, Malaysia, was shot by dogcatchers
on October 29, 2010 while the woman fetched paper to clean up after
him. Made public by her son, Rohan Marshall of Bangkok, Thailand,
the killing rallied national and international support for efforts
led for years by Sabhat Alam Malaysia, the Ipoh SPCA, Noah’s Ark
Ipoh, and PetPositive to abolish dog-shooting. The Ipoh City
Council banned dog-shooting on November 16, 2010. PetPositive
president Anthony Sivabalan, who is also a Petaling Jaya city
councilor, told Ivan Loh of the Star of Malaysia that “The council
will send its officers to their counterparts in Petaling Jaya next
week to learn dog-catching methods. They are also studying the
possibility of setting up an animal shelter. A committee set up by
the council will have meetings later to discuss neutering the
animals.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2010:

“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

Avi Sivan, 53, was killed in a helicopter crash on November
23, 2010 while flyng between Doula and Yaounde, Cameroon. A former
commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Duvdevan unit, Sivan
served as a security advisor for Cameroon President Paul Biya.
Sivan founded the Cameroon Wildlife Aid Fund in 1997, which became
Ape Action Africa in 1999. Operating a sanctuary in Mefou National
Park for more than 250 apes and monkeys, Ape Action Africa in 2000
became a charter member of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance and
hosted the 2010 PASA management workshop.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2010:
(Actual press date November 3.)

“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
Robert J. White, M.D., 84, died on September 16, 2010 at
his home in Geneva, Ohio from complications of diabetes and prostate
cancer. Recalled Grant Segall of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “White
founded the MetroHealth Medical Center neurosurgery department and
Pope John Paul II’s Committee on Bioethics. He belonged to the
Pontifical Academy of Sciences and stumped for what he considered the
right to life at all ages. He examined Vladimir Lenin’s preserved
brain, consulted with Boris Yelstin’s doctors, and joined the
medical team treating John Paul II’s critical injuries from gunshots.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2010:
(published October 5, 2010)

Cedric, 6, a captive-born Tasmanian devil who was the
first known to produce an immune response to Deadly Facial Tumor
Disease, was euthanized in late August 2010 after X-rays showed
tumors in his lungs. Taz survived two years of repeated injections
with DFTD cells at the Menzies Research Institute in Hobart,
Australia, which has been trying to find a cure or a prophylactic
for the disease. Discovered in 2006, DFTD has killed about 80% of
the Tazmanian devils left in the wild. The disease, which began
with a mutation circa 20 years ago in the devils’ nerve
tissue-producing cells, is transmitted when devils bite each other.
The tumor gene was identified in March 2010. Discovery of a colony
of apparently immune wild devils was reported the same month.
Australian National Univ-ersity researcher Elizabeth Murchison
announced on September 16, 2010 that mapping the devils’ genome had
been completed. Together, the findings raised hope that a vaccine
can be engineered to save the species.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2010:
 
Robert Byrd, 92, died on June 28,
2010. Entering politics as a Ku Klux Klan
organizer, Byrd served six years as the West
Virginia state legislator, then served three
terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958, Byrd
remained in the Senate for the rest of his life.
Perhaps best known for his turn against the Klan,
after filibustering against the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, Byrd was most politically consistent on
behalf of animals, voting for the Humane
Slaughter Act during his House tenure, and
delivering perhaps the most thorough denunciation
of factory farming ever uttered in Congress on
July 9, 2001 while seeking funding for stronger

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Rue McClanahan, 76, died of a stroke on June 3, 2010 in
Manhattan. Born and educated in Oklahoma, McClanahan relocated to
New York City and landed her first off-Broadway stage role in 1957.
Television producer Norman Lear cast her in episodes of All In The
Family (1971) and Maude (1972), and she also performed in the
1982-1984 series Mama’s Family before rising to stardom in Golden
Girls (1985-1992.) McClanahan debuted as a PETA spokesperson against
fur in 1988, began promoting cruelty-free cosmetics in 1989, and
spoke out against abuse of animals in show business in 1990. As each
issue led to another, McClanahan became spokesperson for the Farm
Sanctuary legacy program in 1996, and went on to many other
prominent roles in activism, including lecturing Democratic
presidential nominee John Kerry for shooting pheasant in a 2003
photo-op and petitioning President George W. Bush to allow animal
rescuers into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2010:

Arrell, 24, a black-maned African lion (above), was
euthanized due to incurable painful conditions of age on May 21,
2010 at the Primarily Primates sanctuary near San Antonio, Texas.
Like many black-maned lions in the U.S., who may be descended from
Barbary lions imported from Egypt and Ethiopia in the early 20th
century, Arrell originally belonged to a circus. The circus left
him with a veterinarian to be declawed and have a canine tooth
removed, but never reclaimed him. Arrell and a Siberian tiger were
sold to an exotic pet keeper, who in 1993 retired both cats to the
Buffalo Roam Wildlife Sanctuary, operated by Judy Savage near
Seguin, Texas. Arrell was transferred to Primarily Primates in
2003. Savage closed Buffalo Roam in March 2005, after a two-year
effort to find new homes for the animals.

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