SYDNEY MORNING HERALD (Australia) 03 March 08 Snake blamed as academic found dead

(AAP) Respected ecologist and feminist Val Plumwood survived a crocodile attack in 1985.

But 23 years later she appears to have been killed by a much smaller but no less deadly reptile.

Dr Plumwood, 67, was found dead on her wilderness property outside Canberra on Saturday, most likely the victim of a snake or spider bite.

She is thought to have died last Thursday.

Acclaimed internationally but little known locally, Dr Plumwood worked at the University of California's renowned Berkeley campus.

At Canberra's Australian National University she was heavily involved with the Centre for Resources and Environmental Studies.

She also worked at Sydney University, North Carolina State University and the University of Montana.

The academic and environmentalist was attacked by a saltwater crocodile in the Northern Territory in the 1980s.

But she staunchly defended the animal against plans to hunt it down and kill it.

"As I began my 13-hour journey to Darwin Hospital, my rescuers discussed going upriver the next day to shoot a crocodile," Dr Plumwood wrote in Aisling Magazine.

"I spoke strongly against this plan: I was the intruder, and no good purpose could be served by random revenge."

Two years ago Dr Plumwood was bitten by a spider but initially did not bother to phone an ambulance, instead calling friend Jackie French to say she was feeling a little odd.

Ms French today spoke warmly and frankly of an eccentric genius who was "hard work" as a friend.

"I am not surprised by her death," Ms French said, citing Dr Plumwood's love of the wild bush property she lived and died on.

"We had both the philosophy and the bush in common."

Ms French said Dr Plumwood was far from diplomatic in her environmental campaigning, recalling a meeting at which locals asked what would happen if forestry jobs weren't created.

Their last conversation was about 10 days ago. Ms French spent much of it trying unsuccessfully to convince her friend that even women in their late 60s needed to do a tax return.

"She was really the wisest and silliest person I have ever known," Ms French said.

Another friend, Jane Salmon, talked of Dr Plumwood's battle to retain her intellectual integrity following the crocodile attack.

"Val's integrity as a philosopher meant that she would not lend her name to reductive stories, museum installations, advertising or articles which, in her view, oversimplified her experience of nature as its most powerful," Ms Salmon said.

Fellow academic Martin Mulligan described Dr Plumwood as a "very significant writer and thinker".

"She was an uncompromising person and never tried to popularise herself.

"She said 'My contribution will be as a philosopher.' "

Dr Plumwood had two children, John and Caitlin, who both predeceased her.
Snake blamed as academic found dead

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