| Robert Dorsey, 71, described by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Andy Wallace as “an irrepressible animal love whose favorite line to new acquaintances was that he worked in the biggest cathouse in town,” died March 4 in Philadelphia. A former cab driver, Dorsey took a job as an assistant laborer at the Philadelphia Zoo circa 1972, when the Yellow Cab drivers went on strike, cleaned reptile cages until promoted to assistant keeper, and then advanced again, becoming keeper of felines. Dorsey retired in 1987, but remained active on behalf of the zoo and the Pennsylvania SPCA. “His idea of a day out was to visit the SPCA, and he took us there countless times,” son Timothy Dorsey told Wallace. | |
| Paula S. Andreder, American SPCA director of counseling services since 1992, died in November 1996 from breast cancer. According to the spring 1997 edition of the ASPCA publication Animal Watch, “Andreder was instrumental in working with fellow staff on the 1994-1995 Companion Animal Mourning Project, which offered original research into mourning behavior among pets who had experienced the death of another animal residing in the household.” | |
| William Manning, vice president of the West Volusia Humane Society in Deland, Florida, died November 21. | |
| Richard F. Marsh, 58, died on March 21 of cancer at home in Middleton, Wisconsin. A University of Wisconsin at Madison veterinary virologist, Marsh warned in 1986 after tracing the origins of a mink spongiform encephalopathy epidemic on Wisconsin fur farms that feeding the rendered remains of sheep or cattle to other sheep or cattle as a protein supplement could produce a similar brain disease––and that the then completely unknown transmission agent could not be sterilized out. The cattle industry denounced Marsh as an alarmist even as an epidemic of just such a disease, bovine spongiform encepalopathy, broke out in England. Marsh lobbied on for a ban on the use of ruminant renderings as animal feed. His position was vindicated; the USDA has now proposed such a ban, expected to take effect this summer. | |
| Laura Nyro, 49, singer and songwriter whose “later songs exalted pacifism, feminism, and animal rights,” according to New York Times obituarist Stephen Holden, died of ovarian cancer on April 8 at her home in Danbury, Connecticut. Born Laura Nigro in Bronx, New York, the daughter of a jazz trumpeter, Nyro changed her name before making her professional folksinging debut at age 18 in San Francisco. Shouted off stage at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, she recovered to write her first of many hits for others within the year, and within another year produced Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, an autobiographical album Holden remembered as “unlike anything that had been heard in pop music,” which “laid the groundwork for a female-dominated genre of quirky, reflective songwriting that continues to this day.” | 
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Laura Nyro | |
| Paul Steel, 70, and his wife Beverly, 69, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, froze to death on March 5, Beverly’s birthday, after venturing off a cross-country ski trail in the Santa Fe National Forest to seek their temporarily missing keeshond. They told an attendant they were going to look for the dog; the attendant called rescuers to start a search after finding the dog guarding their car the next morning. | |
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Sally Jones, 47, a chimpanzee shot, wounded, and captured in Africa as an infant circa 1950, died March 21 at the Fund for Animals’ Black Beauty Ranch in Texas. Sterile because of her gunshot wounds, she walked upright, performed ballet steps, and bicycled in circuses until 1970. Acquired by the Institute for Primate Studies in Norman, Oklahoma, where she met her longtime companion Nim Chimpsky, she participated in behavioral and cognitive research at the University of Oklahoma for the next 13 years. Sally and Nim came to Black Beauty in 1982, after the sale of the rest of their colony to the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates, at New York University. One of the oldest chimps in the U.S., Sally had suffered from diabetes since 1993. “She will be fondly missed,” said Black Beauty manager Chris Byrne. |
Photograph of Sally Jones courtesy of the Fund for Animals | |
| Count Maurice Rudolph Coreth von und zu Coredo und Starkenberg, 67, identified by both The London Times and The New York Times in closely parallel obituaries as “a charming raconteur” who “mastered the persuasive art of fundraising,” after starting an organization called Rhino Rescue, died February 11 in England. Reputedly trying to join the British cavalry at age 10, at the outset of World War II, the Austrian-born Coreth “rode to hounds with the York and Ainsty and at the age of 21, became Master of the Wilton,” said The London Times, meaning he bore much of the cost of maintaining the hunt. “He was also a skilled showjumper and a courageous steeplechaser,” The London Times continued, “and later in life he was to win the Kenya Grand National.” Becoming an avid trophy hunter on a visit to Sierra Leone, Coreth “was proud to be the first private sport hunter invited to become an honorary member of the East African Professional Hunters’ Association,” The London Times added. After farming in Kenya, 1954-1963, and spending some years as a yachtsman, Coreth in 1985 “attended a meeting of the Shikar Club, a group of former African and Indian hunters living in Britain,” the Associated Press said, “and listened to a speech about the number of rhinos killed by poaching. A year later Mr. Coreth founded Rhino Rescue.” Asserted the London Times, “Combining single-minded dedication to the cause with winning charm and energetic fundraising, Coreth focused world attention on the plight of the black rhino. If the black rhino has a future it will be more due to Coreth than almost anyone else.” But according to the London Telegraph of June 3, 1996, the first Kenyan rhino sanctuary, the Solio Ranch, was begun in 1966, while Anna Merz founded the noted Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary in 1983, using her own money. The latter reputedly inspired eight other sanctuaries; it is possible Coreth was associated with one of them. Newsday on April 19, 1988 reported the February 1988 formation of the Rhino Rescue Fund by Kenyan zoologist David Western, now director of Kenya Wildlife Services. The Platinum Wildlife Foundation, sponsored by Platinum Technology, of Lombard, Illinois, advertised support of a Black Rhino Rescue project in 1992 and 1995. Otherwise, an extensive search of the World Wide Web and ANIMAL PEOPLE archives, including New York Times rhino-related coverage, 1988-present, found nothing to confirm the obituary claims. The London Times concluded that, “At the time of his death, Coreth was embarking on a project to save the tiger and the one-horned rhino in India, a task which his son Mark now hopes to fulfill.” | |