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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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OCTOBER 2005
OBITUARIES
Jan Moor-Jankowski, 81, died on August 27, 2005 in New York City after a brief illness. Born in Poland, Moor-Jankowski joined the Polish Army at age 15 to help fight the 1939 Nazi invasion, then fought in the resistance. “Moor-Jankow-ski’s underground exploits included impersonating a German officer in an elaborate scheme to forge travel documents,” recalled Douglas Martin of The New York Times. “After an explosive bullet burst in his knee, he was shifted from hospital to hospital, speaking German even under anesthesia. The last of his 27 escapes from German and Soviet prisons was into Switzerland. He earned his medical degree there, partly by writing his thesis on the leg brace he invented for himself.” As a blood researcher, Martin added, “Moor-Jankowski experimented on himself, but refused an offer to do medical tests on American prisoners. He started working with apes,” eventually developing ethical qualms about that, too. Moor-Jankowski emigrated to the U.S. in 1963 to found the New York Primate Center at New York University. In 1965 Moor-Jankowski formed the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates, LEMSIP for short, which for the next 30 years was widely seen as the standard setter in humane treatment of laboratory primates. “He was dismissed by NYU on August 9, 1995,” Martin summarized, “the day after the USDA told the university that he had reported violations” of the Animal Welfare Act at another of its labs. ANIMAL PEOPLE reported the firing on page one. Moor-Jankowski ensured before leaving that all of the LEMSIP primates were retired to the Primarily Primates and Wildlife Waystation sanctuaries. Moor-Jankowski may be best remembered, however, for spending $2 million of his own money in a successful defense against a libel suit brought against him in his capacity as founding editor of the International Journal of Primatology. Moor-Jankowski had published a letter from International Primate Protection League founder Shirley McGreal, criticizing the Austrian pharmaceutical firm Immuno AG for planning to capture wild chimpanizees. McGreal’s insurer settled the case against her out of court, against her opposition, but Moor-Jankowski fought on through two rulings by the New York State Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, which together won greater protection for authors and publishers of letters to the editor of publications.
Linda Lawson Clark, 65, Director of Animal Care and Control for Rockdale County, Georgia, died after a brief illness on August 28, 2005. Clark helped to open the first Rockdale County animal shelter in March 1978, and then helped to develop the Rockdale Animal Care & Control Center to replace it. She held many leadership posts over the years within the Georgia Animal Control Association and the Southeastern Animal Control Association, and chaired the Animal Advisory Committee for the Georgia Department of Agriculture. “Her efforts also contributed to the development of a state license plate to be sold to support county sterilization programs across Georgia,” recalled the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Donna Strachan Pal, 41, died of breast cancer on October 1, 2005 in Columbia Township, Ohio, six months after giving birth to her second child. Strachan Pal “rescued and found homes for hundreds of animals over the last 15 years,” recalled Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Donna Iacoboni. She met her husband, veterinarian Denes Pal, in 1990, while working as a veterinary receptionist. They started their own clinic in 1997. “She was a stray animal’s best friend,” North Coast Humane Society president Sue Gundich told Iacaboni. Co-founding Spelko-Pal Chow Rescue in 1998, Stachan Pal became a frequent guest of TV weatherman Dick Goddard. “Her most recent television appearance was on September 12,” Iacoboni wrote, “when she talked about taking in three dogs for a New Orleans family who had driven here after Hurricane Katrina and needed temporary homes for their dogs. She was among the founding members of the Animal Disaster Teams of Medina, Lorain and Cuyahoga counties.”
Ann Plummer, 57, died on June 25, 2005 in Auroville, India, her home for about 30 years after emigrating from New Zealand. The longtime chief dog caretaker at the Auroville experimental city, near Pondi-cherry, Plummer was noted for her local anti-rabies and anti-distemper vaccination work.
Frantz Dantzler, 67, died on June 18, 2005, after a fall in his home in South Bend, Indiana. Working in Colorado in 1962 as an aerospace electronics technician, Dantzler was recruited by his neighbor Belton Mouras to fill a post at the Boulder County Humane Society, then a special branch of HSUS. In July 1964 Dantzler became shelter supervisor for the Utah Humane Society, founded as an HSUS special project. After HSUS dropped the former state affiliates in 1970 in favor of operating regional branch offices, Dantzler briefly headed the Rocky Mountains regional branch, then succeeded Mouras as head of the HSUS west coast office, while Mouras founded the Animal Protection Institute. Noted for his efforts to enforce the 1971 Wild & Free Roaming Horse & Burro Protection Act, Dantzler moved to Washington D.C. in 1975 to replace HSUS chief investigator Frank McMahon, who had died on the job. In 1984 Dantzler opened the HSUS Chicago office. “He would later assume the role of senior investigator, operating from his home in Indiana,” wrote HSUS obituarist Bernard Unti. “Dantzler continued to participate in HSUS investigations into the mid-1990s,” Unti recalled. “He went several times to Honduras to document the illegal trade in imperiled wildlife. Dantzler was an award-winning photographer,” Unti added, “whose photo credits were a fixture in HSUS publications.” Dantzler also authored a monthly column for the South Bend Tribune.
Jimmy Thompson, husband of Animal Rescue Foundation director Bobbie Thompson, of Milledgeville, Georgia, died suddenly on September 1, 2005.