From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003–

Roadway, a semi-feral cat known to many as “the cat who
plays with deer,” and famously photographed in an encounter with a
wild turkey, was rescued by the Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance in
1990 from a Denver warehouse after he arrived as a stowaway on a
Roadway truck from Ohio. On March 19, 2003, one day after 51
inches of wet snow blanketed his habitat, Roadway developed a
urinary tract blockage. Friends and neighbors hauled him one and a
half miles by snowshoe and 20 miles by highway to a veterinary
clinic, where after successful surgery he pulled a catheter from his
leg and bled to death. –Audrey Boag

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2003:

Fred Rogers, 74, died from cancer on
February 27 at his home in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. A strict vegetarian, Rogers
taught on his television show Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood that “True wisdom is never separate
from compassion.” Rogers debuted in children’s
television in 1954 as a puppeteer for The
Children’s Corner, aired by WQED-Pittsburgh.
Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1963,
Rogers was assigned to continue working in TV.
Later in 1963 Rogers developed a 15-minute show
called Misterogers for the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation. He returned the show to Pittsburgh
in 1966, and expanded it into Mister Rogers’
Neighborhood for the Eastern Educational Network.
It was picked up by National Educational
Television in 1968, which later became the
Public Broadcasting Service. Rogers produced
more than 1,700 episodes. He retired due to
declining health in 2000, but returned to the
air briefly in 2001 to reassure children about
the goodness of the world and their ability to
make it better after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2003:

Dolly,  6,  the sheep who was the world’s first cloned
mammal,  was euthanized due to an incurable lung disease and chronic
arthritis  on February 14 at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian,
Scotland,  her lifelong home.  Produced from an udder cell from a
six-year-old ewe,  Dolly was born in July 1996 and named after the
singer Dolly Parton.  At age two she showed signs of premature aging,
and by her death she appeared to be twice her chronological age.
Similar effects have now been seen in all mammals cloned to date.
Researchers now believe that cloned animals are the biological age of
the cells they were made from–a major setback to the theory that
cloning might enable humans to practice self-perpetuation,  as each
clone would in effect be born at the same biological age as the cell
source,  and all would reach elderly decrepitude at the same time.
Dolly’s death “highlights more than ever the foolishness of those who
want to legalize human reproductive cloning,” said Alan Colman,  one
of the scientists whose work produced her.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  March 2003:

Kalpana Chawla,  41,  remembered in
Indian newspaper obituaries right after mention
that she was an astronaut as “A devout Hindu and
fourth generation vegetarian,”  was killedon
February 1 along with all six of her flightmates
when the space shuttle Columbia exploded over
Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s
atmosphere.  Born to Pakistani immigrant parents
in Haryana state,  India,  Chawla married flight
instructor Jean Pierre Harrison soon after
starting aerospace engineering studies at the
University of Texas at Arlington.  She lived in
Texas for the rest of her life,  but maintained
her links to India as well.  Haryana residents
saluted her first spaceflight in 1997 with a
torchlight parade that they hoped she could see
from orbit.

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