By Daniel Dern: Karen Pryor passed away on January 4, 2025, at age 92, but I only just learned about this from today’s New York Times obituaries.

Via Wikipedia: Karen Liane Pryor (née Karen Liane Pryor (née Wylie; May 14, 1932 – January 4, 2025); May 14, 1932 – January 4, 2025) was an American author who specialized in behavioral psychology and marine mammal biology. She was the founder and proponent of clicker training. She was formerly a Marine Mammal Commissioner to the U.S. government.

I know (about) her best from having read her seminal animal training book, Don’t Shoot The Dog.

Any Filers who have visited Sea Life Park in Hawaii and watched the dolphin shows will have (indirectly) benefited from her animal training expertise.

Many dog owners have benefitted from her work popularizing Clicker training (for positive reinforcement).

And here’s the SFnal connection: Pryor’s father was Philip Wylie, author of, among other books, When/After Worlds Collide (co-authored with Edwin Balmer), Gladiator (arguably a precursor/inspiration to Superman), The Disappearance (which predated Stephen & Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties by over six decades), The Spy Who Spoke Porpoise (I don’t know whether Pryor contributed expertise to this)…and, non-SFly, Finnley Wren, Generation of Vipers, and (perhaps my favorite, along with Gladiator) the fishing stores of Crunch and Des, which are available e.g., this 22-story-collection on Hoopla.

And here’s a Filer connection: Pryor (also) wrote Getting Started: Clicker Training for Cats.

And another connection (news to me), courtesy of Wikipedia: Her uncle was Max Wylie, co-creator of The Flying Nun.

Here’s a few quick links to Pryor:

• “Remembering Karen Pryor: The Legacy of a Trailblazer Who Ignited a Global Training Revolution” – includes a link to the two-hour video, “A Celebration of Life: Karen Pryor”
• From the NY Times obituary (sorry, paywalled) “Karen Pryor, Guru of Positive Reinforcement, Is Dead at 92”: “She was so successful at training dolphins that she began applying the same techniques to other creatures, including dogs — and humans…”
• Pryor’s daughter Gale Pryor wrote this article, “My mother’s decline into dementia, in her own words”, which appeared in the October 11, 2023 Boston Globe’s Magazine section .
• (From Improbable.com) “Sad news: Karen Pryor has died”

“…[Pryor] and colleague Theresa McKeon (wearing the white striped shirt) are receiving the 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for education, for using a simple animal-training technique— called “clicker training” —to help new doctors acquire basic surgical skills….”

That 2019 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony also included a new mini-opera that featured a song about Pryor and McKeon’s using-clicker-training-to-teach-medical-students study. Immediately prior to that song, Pryor delivered a 24/7 lecture about clicker training. (Pryor & McKeon appear around the 42-minute mark.)