Pat Derby, Champion of Animal Welfare, Dies at 69
She was not on the list.
A former Hollywood animal trainer who trained Flipper and Lassie and later devoted her life to
protecting performing animals after seeing widespread abuse in the entertainment industry has died.
The Performing Animal Welfare Society says Pat Derby died Friday at her Northern California home at age 69. She had throat cancer. Derby co-founded the sanctuary and activist organization.
She often served as the public face and voice for performing animals, and in recent years fought primarily to get elephants out of circuses and zoos and into three sanctuaries.
Derby wrote in an autobiography that while working on television shows like "Flipper," ''Lassie" and "Daktari" she developed training methods involving love and trust. But she was shocked by the rampant neglect and abuse she saw among other trainers.
She trained wild animals for television shows and movies, using "affection methods" that avoided causing pain for the animal. But Pat disagreed with Ted's use of an electric cattle prod in training, and they divorced in the mid-1970s. She trained animals for the CBS television series Lassie, Gentle Ben and Daktari and the NBC series Flipper. She also worked on the Lincoln-Mercury ad campaign that featured Farrah Fawcett with two cougars in the 1970s.
Self (7 credits)
2013 Lion Ark (Documentary)
Self
2013 An Apology to Elephants (Documentary short)
Self (PAWS)
2010 The Last Elephants in Thailand (Video documentary short)
Self
1999 When Good Pets Go Bad (TV Special)
Self - Performing Animals Welfare Association
1996 The World's Most Dangerous Animals (TV Movie documentary)
Self - Director of PAWS
1974 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (TV Series)
Self
- Milton Berle/Leslie Uggams/Susan Sarandon/Pat Derby (1974) ... Self
1973 What's My Line? (TV Series)
Self - Contestant
- Bernadette Peters (1973) ... Self - Contestant
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