ANIMAL PEOPLE is the
leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage
of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has
no alignment or affiliation with any other entity.
Elmina Brewster Sewall, 93, died on April
7, 2005 in Kennebunk, Maine. Among the first breeders of Sussex spaniel
show dogs in the U.S., Brewster Sewall “between 1936 and 1940, imported
some of the best stock available in England,” and “went on to
breed seven litters over the next six years,” wrote John Robert Lewis
Jr. in Sussex Spaniel, A Complete and Reliable Handbook (1997). Brewster
Sewall also “bred and raised pugs, and was a familiar figure at the
Westminster Dog Show,” recalled Katie Dolloff, program coordinator
for the Animal Welfare Society of Southern Maine. But she had also become
concerned about pet overpopulation, and in the 1950s allowed her line
of Sussex spaniels to die out. After several years of informal animal
rescue, Brewster Sewall and friends incorporated the Animal Welfare Society
in 1967. A longtime AWS board member, Brewster Sewall was also active
in greyhound rescue, and assisted other charities including Mainely Girls,
Friends of the Sea Otter, the Student Conservation Association, and the
Massachusetts SPCA. The AWS named the Elmina B. Sewall Animal Shelter
after her in 1990. It finds homes for more than 3,000 animals a year,”
Dolloff said.
Paul G. Dye, 68, died on April 2. “Dye
was born in Ohio, but spent most of his youth in New Jersey,” recalled
the Everett Herald. “By age 12, he had already started raising waterfowl.
After moving to the Pacific Northwest, Dye purchased part of a wetland
near Lake Cassidy,” which became the Northwest Wildfowl Farm, featuring
“32 ponds, eight acres of grain fields, four miles of trails, a salmon
stream, and forestry improvements for grouse and other woodland species.
Nesting sites have been installed for wood ducks, flying squirrels, bats,
chickadees and flickers,” along with an “enclosed and heated
wildlife observation blind and an observation tower for visitors.”
Dye and Charles Pilling of Seattle were reputedly the first to breed the
endangered spectacled eider in captivity, and helped to started a captive
breedng program for the eider on the North Slope of Alaska.
Vicky Elizabeth Bartlett, 50, of Kew, Australia,
a suburb of Melbourne, wife of sculptor Geoffrey Bartlett, was on February
28 flipped into the air and trampled by a hippo at Fisherman’s Camp
on Lake Naivasha, Kenya. Traveling with a group of 12 fellow tourists
to the Masai Mara Game Reserve, Bartlett was fascinated by a hippo she
saw the night before, tour guide John Mwangi said, and apparently went
off alone to look for another one.
Bob Hunter, 63, died of prostate cancer in
Toronto on May 2, 2005. “Hunter, a columnist for the Vancouver Sun
in the 1960s, came to prominence in 1971 with the launch of Greenpeace
and its protests against nuclear testing,” recalled Associated Press.
“Hunter, who coined the phrase ‘Don’t Make a Wave,’
the original name of Greenpeace, “boarded a small fishing boat dubbed
the Greenpeace in 1971 and set off to Alaska to protest U.S. nuclear testing.
‘I thought I was going to be a reporter, taking notes,’ Hunter
later said. ‘In reality, I wound up on first watch.’ Hunter
was elected the first president of Greenpeace in 1973. “In 1974,
Bob took the embers of what we began with the 1971 voyage to Amchitka
to oppose nuclear testing, and he fanned the dying sparks into the flames
that became the Greenpeace movement,” e-mailed Greenpeace cofounder
and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society founder Paul Watson. “If there
had been no Robert Hunter, Greenpeace would simply be a footnote in the
history books from the early seventies. In March of 1976, he and I stood
on the heaving ice floes off the coast of Labrador as a large sealing
ship bore down on us. The ice cracked and split beneath our feet as I
said to Bob ‘When it splits, I’ll jump to the left and you to
the right.’ Bob looked straight ahead and calmly said, ‘I’m
not going anywhere.’ Because he stayed, I stayed, and we brought
that seal killing ship to a dead stop. Bob participated in numerous campaigns
with the Sea Shepherds,” Watson added. “His last campaign with
us was off the coast of Washington State in 1998–1999,” against
Makah tribe whaling. “It was my great privilege to have been his
friend for 35 years. With his passing the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
loses one of our most valued Advisory Board members.” In recent years
Hunter was environmental news specialist for CHUM Citytv and CP24 in Toronto.
“He was perhaps best known to Toronto viewers for ‘Paper Cuts,’
a segment in which he wore a bathrobe and commented on the stories in
the day’s news,” Associated Press said.
Arlin Resnicke, 48, died of cancer on April
7, 2005, in Bakersfield, California. A motorcycle mechanic who worked
at home, Resnicke had kennels for 16 rescued Siberian huskies in his yard,
and in more than 15 years of helping huskies, found homes for several
hundred. “Every-thing was for the dogs,” fellow rescuer Nikki
Artiaga said. “The dogs were his life.” The huskies left by
his death were rehomed by Siberian Referral of California.
Nancy Elizabeth Hand, 58, died on March 3,
2005, in Hanover, Michigan, remembered by the Jackson Citizen Patriot
for her love of animals and many animal companions. “Her nurturing,
compassionate nature prompted her to serve as foster guardian for many
abused and homeless animals,” the Citizen Patriot noted.
