Antonie Marinus Harthoorn

Who is Antonie Marinus Harthoorn?

Antonie Marinus Harthoorn, or 'Toni' Harthoorn was a veterinarian and environmentalist.

Harthoorn was born in Rotterdam and grew up in England. His father was an economist employed by Unilever who worked during the World War II as economic adviser for the Dutch government in exile. Toni studied veterinary science at the Veterinary College in London. During World War II he was trained as an officer in Sandhurst and Aldershot and became a commando, being one of the first to parachute into Arnhem during the relief of the Netherlands by Allied troops. After the war he graduated and continued to study at the universities of Utrecht and Hannover. He took a PhD in the physiology of mammalian shock and then went out to Kenya and Tanzania. There he studied the effects of various sedative drugs on wild African mammals and with a team invented the M-99 capture drug and refined the tranquilliser gun, or 'Capture gun', for darting animals. This was an enormous breakthrough in animal transport and enabled the safe movement of many rare animals from places in which they were at risk from poaching or development to game sanctuaries.