Known to animal lovers as the host of the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, Emmy-Award winning broadcaster Roger A. Caras was a veteran of network television programs including “Nightline,” “ABC News Tonight” and “20/20” before devoting himself to work as president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and to becoming an author.

Credited with writing more than five dozen books on animals and animal welfare, Caras died February 18, 2001, after a brief illness following a heart attack. He was 72.

Born May 28, 1928, in the rural town of Methuen, Mass., Caras was raised in a family that encouraged love of animals. His parents allowed him to foster a menagerie of pets and during the Depression he went to work at the age of 10 to help pay for his pets’ upkeep. He first job, working in the stables of a SPCA shelter, was his first experience with animal rescue in the shelter’s haven for abused horses. He completed his education at Boston’s Huntington Preparatory School and immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army near the end of World War II.

Caras returned to Boston after his tour of duty and then enrolled as a zoology major at Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill. In 1950, he transferred to Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, but interrupted his education for military service again, this time in the Korean War from 1950 to 1952.

Caras returned to civilian life as a West Coast resident, attending the University of Southern California where he earned a degree, not in zoology, but in cinema, and stepped from academic life to executive-level work in the motion picture industry. During 15 years in the film world, Caras held a number of assignments, including serving as press secretary for actress Joan Crawford, and a three-year assignment as an aide de camp to Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick on the science fiction epic “2001: A Space Odyssey.” During his Hollywood years, Caras also launched his writing career, contributing articles on animal and environmental issues to such periodicals as “Audubon” and publishing his first book, “Antarctica: Land of Frozen Time,” in 1962.

Roger A. Caras on his Maryland farm with his various pets.

In 1964, Caras made his broadcasting debut on the NBC-syndicated program “The Today Show,” spending nearly a decade as the program’s “house naturalist.” His skills in broadcasting, research, biology, and zoology led to his acceptance as one of the media’s best-regarded animal authorities. He was sought out by the Walt Disney conglomerate as a consultant on their Florida “Animal Kingdom” park.

Acting as a special correspondent, Caras reported from around the globe on a variety of animal and environmental issues that ranged from exposes on laboratory animals to the plight of the endangered Giant Panda in China and to investigation of the black market commerce in exotic animals and poaching.

Caras spent from 1975 to 1992 as a regularly featured reporter on “ABC News with Peter Jennings,” as well as contributing to “Nightline,” “20/20,” and “Good Morning America.” He also hosted radio programs, including “Pets and Wildlife” on CBS, “Report from the World of Animals” on NBC and the ABC series “The Living World.”

Caras earned countless awards for his work, from honorary degrees to an Emmy Award for his reporting. His books include “The Bond” and his last book, “Going for the Blue: Inside the World of Show Dogs and Dog Shows” that was published in time for the 2001 Westminster competition.

Caras’s tireless work with and on behalf of animals led to his 1991 election as the 14th president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the oldest humane treatment of animals organization in the United States. During his tenure, the ASPCA expanded its care, protection and education programs, and adopted a number of internal practices to improve its work. Caras retired in 1999 and became president emeritus, acting as a consultant and public speaker for the organization.

Caras made his home in Freeland, Md., outside of Baltimore, Md., where he and his wife, Jill Langdon Barclay, maintained a farm that became home for a variety of animals. As of 2001, Caras was sharing his farm with 12 dogs, nine cats, five horses, two cows, a pair of alpacas and a llama. After his death, his wife, son Dr. Barclay Caras, and daughter, Pamela Caras, requested that people wishing to honor his memory donate memorial contributions to the ASPCA in his name.

Interview with Jill Barclay Caras

Jill Barclay Caras, widow of Roger A. Caras, continues to live on their Freeland, Md., horse farm and enjoys a full life with her family, consisting of daughter Pamela Caras and Pamela’s two children, Sarah, 22, and Hannah, 18, and the Caras’ son, Dr. Barclay Caras, M.D. and his two children, Joshua, 20, and Abigail, 18.

Jill often drives to the AMVM Museum at Ridgewood Farm in Berks County from her Maryland farm to help catalogue her late husband’s book collection and participate in AMVM board meetings and AMVM special events.

“Roger and I both were raised in Massachusetts,” Jill said during an interview for the AMVM’s new website. “I was 16 years old when I met Roger, who was serving in the Army during World War II and was home on leave. He was already interested in the film industry, and my father, Joseph Vonstroheim, who was a film editor, introduced us,” Jill explained. “We were married when I was 19 in 1953.”

Jill said that they lived in California when Roger was involved in the film industry for 15 years where he held jobs including vice president for the Stanley Kubrick Production of the science fiction epic “200l: A Space Odyssey.”

“He also began his writing career during his Hollywood years,” Jill recalled. “In 1964 he made his broadcasting debut on the NBC-syndicated program ‘The Today Show’ and we ended up living in a Manhattan apartment for 17 years while Roger worked for ABC, NBC, and CBS.”

Jill fondly recalls Roger’s many trips around the world on behalf of animal welfare when he was president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 1991 to 1999. Jill has donated to the AMVM numerous photographs of Roger receiving awards for his outstanding work, including an Emmy Award for his work on television’s “20/20” and “Nightline.”

Since her husband’s death following a heart attack in 2001 at age 72, Jill has continued to keep his name alive and continues to enjoy being surrounded on their farm with a menagerie of beloved pets, including “Kermit,” “Maude” and “Fiona,” all Jack Russell Terriers, “Binx,” “Angus,” and “McGregor,” all West Highland White Terriers, a whippet, a rescued greyhound, an Australian Shepherd named “Glory,” and a 17-year-old, three-legged mixed bred she adoringly calls “Cleo.” And we can’t forget her three American Quarter Horses, three donkeys, eight cats, and six fish!

But Jill especially enjoys keeping up with her grandchildren’s numerous activities. “Barclay’s son, Joshua, is an up and coming actor in the Bruce Willis film, “Gracie,” now on DVD,” she said proudly.