Husband-and-wife wildlife veterinarians who were nationally prominent experts on chronic wasting disease and brucellosis were killed in a snowy-weather crash on U.S. 287 in northern Colorado, authorities confirmed Thursday.

Tom Thorne and Beth Williams, both of rural Albany County, Wyo., died when their pickup truck hit a jackknifed trailer Wednesday night, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and Colorado Highway Patrol.

Williams, 53, had taught at the University of Wyoming since 1982 and was also familiar with wildlife diseases. "She was probably the foremost chronic wasting disease expert in the country," Game and Fish spokesman Al Langston said.

Thorne, 63, was acting director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for nine months in 2002 and 2003. He worked in the department for 35 years before retiring in 2003 and was a prominent researcher of chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, as well as of brucellosis in bison and elk.

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Source: Associated Press, Mead Gruver
December 30, 2004

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