Obituaries

Tell Hicks, doing what he did best, painting reptiles at NARBC. Photo by Cindy Steinle

The reptile community lost one of our great leaders this Friday when artist Tell Hicks passed away. Tell was always a great friend to kingsnake.com and to me.

Photo Courtesy California Academy of Sciences Starting his life on September 15, 1995 in a Louisiana swamp, Claude was quickly brought into captivity because the chances of survival as an albino animal is none. After a brief time growing up at St. Augustine Alligator Farm & Zoological Gardens, Claude became a fixture at the California Academy of Sciences building in their swamp. He also in a way became an unofficial and well beloved mascot of the whole City of San Francisco.

“As you can imagine it’s a very sad day over here,” said Jeanette Peach, Cal Academy’s acting communications director, in an email to SFGATE. “At the moment we’re not doing interviews as we don’t have more information to share yet, but once we have the findings of the necropsy and exam that is being performed at UC Davis we will be able to share more.”

Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Topsail Beach holds onto Southport a juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtle Wednesday Sept. 20, 2006. Southport along with Carolina held by Sandy Sly as Jeanie Marasco of North East, Maryland looks on were both released back into the ocean after being rehabilitated at the hospital. KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS

Jean Beasley, the founder of the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, passed surrounded by loved ones at the age of 90, but she leaves a huge hole in Sea Turtle conservation. She was the director and driving force behind the rehabilition center, named after her daughter who passed from Leukemia at the age of 29/ She and her daughter originally created the Topsail Turtle Project, which protected nests and hatchlings, eventually she expanded that into work with the hospital as well as public outreach through the center. Topsail is the midway point between New York and Florida, so the facility helps many cold stunned turtles each year on their migration. To read more about this amazingly dedicated woman, click here.

Our thoughts are with the family. Rest well Brian.

inset photo Mr. Fowler and Peter Gros in 2002. (Nati Harnik/AP) I never met Jim Fowler in my entire life, but I can attribute a lot of who I am to our weekend mornings spent in my childhood. My breakfast bowl of Apple Jacks, cross legged on the floor of my living room, I would stare at the TV with rapt attention waiting to learn about the animals in our world. He inspired me to learn and read more about animals. He along with his long time co-host, Marlon Perkins, taught me about conservation. They taught me that beauty was simple to find and hard to hold on to. Jim's message on nature was simple and I hope he knew this difference it made in so many lives.

"What we have to do is ask ourselves, 'What's in it for me?' Only then will we realize that the continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is ultimately important to the quality of life of humans."

Legendary Texas herpetologist and naturalist James R. (Jim) Dixon passed away yesterday, January 10, 2015, leaving a legacy in Texas herpetology and herpetoculture that will be hard to match.

Dr. Dixon never met a snake he didn't like. Professor Emeritus and Curator Emeritus of amphibians and reptiles at the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection at Texas A&M University, in his long, distinguished career Dr. Dixon described hundreds of new species of reptiles and amphibians worldwide, with a special emphasis on the herpetofauna of Texas, Mexico, Central America, and South America.

Longtime reptile keeper and breeder and kingsnake.com member Rico Walder, known for his passion for green tree pythons, lost his long fight with brain cancer yesterday.

Rico always brought out the best in people, and watching the reptile world pull together, with dozens of fundraisers at reptile events coast to coast over a multi-year period, showed just how special he was to our community. His fight was our fight as well, and to lose him makes the reptile world seem a colder, emptier place for all.

In losing Carl Koch, the herp world has lost a friend. And so have I.

Back many years ago, when I had but one lone iguana, I, like many of us, began frequenting my local reptile friendly pet store. At the time for me, it was Pets N Things in Cudahy, Wisc. Every Friday I would find myself at the store at the same time as a local reptile guy named Carl. He saw that I actually wanted to learn more and introduced me to herp societies, books and, importantly to my future, kingsnake.com.

The Southwestern California herp community has a big hole in it today. Jarron Lucas passed away quietly in his sleep, surrounded by friends, on his way back from the Hopi Mesa on Sunday, September 23.

To many Jarron was a mentor, but to me he was a friend. I remember meeting him last summer for the first time at the Chiricahua Lodge between the Biology of the Rattlesnake symposium and the International Herpetological Symposium. Returning late to the lodge with a group of herpers, he was overjoyed at the find of a wee baby Mojave Rattlesnake. "It isn't how much you find, but that you are out there looking." I had just gotten into field herping and that thought rang true.

The reptile world is in mourning this week after losing two of it's own, people that changed the reptile world for everyone in a good way and whose loss leaves big holes in our communiuty. Center for North American Herpetology Co-founder and Director Joseph T. Collins suffered a heart attack and died on 14 January 2012 in Florida. Joe Collins was the driving force behind the Center for North American Herpetology. The CNAH brings a variety of herp news, some of it shared here on this page, and provided a data bank for researchers and professionals across the country a central networking data base. His list of books that he authored is immense and I would venture to say most herpers own at least one. His passion for the field was obvious and it was in the field herping that he left this community. But for others who knew him more intimately, Joe was a major inspiration. Mike Rochford, a wildlife research assistant for the University of Florida, knew Joe, and his life's path was forever changed because of that. From Mike:

He was just an all-around great guy. He could always make you smile, laugh, or get excited about the future. He was the brains behind the Kansas Herpetological Society, the number one state herp society in the nation. And he had the ability to excite a passion among people in that state that will never be rivaled. In fact, KHS field trips brought in many people from other states as the reputation for a good time and great herping became more and more well-known. The state of Kansas really lost a champion for wildlife. Joe was "The Crocodile Hunter" before that ever became cool. And by that I mean he inspired a lot of people with his enthusiasm.

Reports on the internet surfaced late yesterday that legendary reptile keeper and inspiration to reptile hobbyists world wide, Bill Haast, founder of the Miami Serpentarium, has passed away. We are still trying to confirm this information as it has yet to appear in the main stream press and will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

If any man deserved the sobriquet "legendary" in this community, Bill Haast led the way. I only met Bill in the later years of his life but knew of and read of his exploits in the field and in the lab for many years prior and many of his proteges at times took me under their wing, feeding me stories of their time growing up at or around the Serpentarium in the 60s and 70s.