Rita Miljo, rescuer of baboons, dead at 81

JOHANNESBURG -- Conservationist Rita Miljo, who cared for and reintroduced packs of baboons back into the wilds of South Africa, died in a fire that destroyed much of the headquarters of the sanctuary she built, a sanctuary official said Saturday. She was 81.

Miljo died Friday in the small apartment she kept above the clinic of the Centre for Animal Rehabilitation & Education in the bush of Limpopo province, said Karl Pierce, a director with the sanctuary. With her at her death was Bobby, the first battered Chacma baboon she ever rescued and nursed back to health in 1980 after spiriting it away from a national park without a permit.

Bobby also died in the fire, along with two other older baboons that stayed in her apartment, Pierce said.

The fire broke out around 8 p.m. Friday after volunteers and workers left the center for the evening, Pierce said. No one else was injured in the blaze, which consumed the clinic, offices and a house on the property, about 250 miles northeast of Johannesburg. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. -- AP