Dian Fossey – an American Primatologist & Pioneer OF Gorilla conservation
Best known for researching the endangered mountain gorillas in the Rwandan mountain forest from the 1960s to the 1980s, Dian Fossey was an American primatologist who dedicated her life towards the protection and conservation of mountain gorillas. She was involved in continuous research about all issues related to mountain gorillas within the Virunga Mountains including how to habituate them.
Also, she was the founder of the famous Karisoke Research Center of Rwanda where she conducted her extensive research on mountain gorillas.
Dian Fossey is also famous for her mysterious death in the forests of Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and she was buried there amidst her beloved gorillas.
Who Was Dian Fossey?
During her trip to Africa in 1963 and while working as an occupational therapist, Dian Fossey became interested in the primates. She went on to study the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest for two decades before her unsolved murder occurred in 1985 in Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.
Dian Fossey told her story in the famous book Gorillas in the Mist (1983) which was later adapted for a film starring Sigourney Weaver.
Early Life
Dian Fossey was born on January 16, 1932 in San Francisco, California and grew up with her mother and stepfather. Developing an affinity for animals at a young age, throughout her youth. Fossey was an avid horseback rider and an aspiring veterinarian. However, after enrolling in pre-veterinary studies at the University of California, Davis, she transferred to San Jose State College and changed her major to occupational therapy.
After graduating from San Jose in 1954, Fossey spent several months working as a hospital intern in California and then moved to Louisville, Kentucky where she began serving as director of the Kosair Crippled Christian’s Hospital’s occupational therapy department in 1955.
Living on a farm on the outskirts of Louisville, Fossey spent many off-hours happily tending to the livestock. But her contentment did not last long. Soon she became restless, longing to see other parts of the world and setting her sights in Africa.
‘Gorillas in the Mist’
Dian Fossey embarked on her first trip to Africa in September 1963, this trip cost Fossey her entire life savings at the time as well as a bank loan. She visited Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Congo among other areas. Soon she met paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey and her husband, archaeologist Louis Leakey – one of the best known husband-wife teams in the history of science.
Then she met Joan and Alan Root, native wildlife photographers who were working on a documentary of African gorillas at the time and when the couple brought her along on one of their trips in search of the primates, Fossey was instantly enamored. Later she explained her draw to gorillas in her 1983 autobiographical work Gorillas in the Mist. “it was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes”, Fossey said. “I left Kabara with reluctance, but with never a doubt that I would, somehow, return to learn more about the gorillas of the misted mountains.”
Back in Kentucky, Fossey caught up with Louis at a lecture in Louisville in 1966 and he invited her to take on a long term study of the endangered gorillas of the Rwanda’s mountain forest (Leakey believed that researching primates would greatly benefit the study of human evolution). Dian Fossey accepted the offer and subsequently lived among the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo until civil war forced her to escape to Rwanda.
In 1967, Fossey established the Karisoke Research Foundation in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park to facilitate the study of mountain gorillas, alternating her time between her field work there and obtaining a PH.D based on her research at Cambridge University. She earned her degree in 1976, later she accepted a visiting associate professorship at Cornell University.
Death and Legacy
Considered the world’s leading authority on the physiology and behavior of mountain gorillas, Dian Fossey fought hard to protect these gentle giants, from environmental and human hazards. She saw these animals as dignified, highly social creatures with individual personalities and strong family relations. Her active conservationist stand to save these animals from game wardens, Zoo poachers and government officals who wanted to convert gorilla habitats to farmland cause her to fight for the gorillas not only via the media, but also by destroying poacher’s dogs and traps.
Typically, on December 26, 1985, Fossey was found hacked to death, presumably by poachers at her Rwandan forest camp – The Karisoke Research Center. No assailant has ever been found or prosecuted in her murder.
Today, Dian Fossey’s work continues through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (formerly named the Digit Fund), under which the Karisoke Research Foundation continues to operate, despite the odds. After Karisoke’s original facility in Rwanda was destroyed during the Rwandan Civil War, its headquarters were relocated to Musanze. The foundation recently brought in its first Rwandan director.
According to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund – Since Fossey’s death in 1985, the Fund’s activities have expanded to include the protection of Grauer’s (eastern lowland) gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as the mountain gorillas in that country’s Virunga National Park and other endangered species in the gorillas; habitats.
QUICK FACTS
- Name: Dian Fossey
- Birth Year: 1932
- Birth date: January 16, 1932
- Birth State: California
- Birth City: San Francisco
- Birth Country: United States
- Gender: Female
- Best Known For: Dian Fossey was a zoologist best known for researching the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest from the 1960s to the 1980s, and for her mysterious murder.
- Industries
- Education and Academia
- Astrological Sign: Capricorn
- Schools – San Jose State University, Darwin College, University of Cambridge and Lowell High School
- Death Year: 1985
- Death date: December 26, 1985
- Death City: Volcanoes National Park
- Death Country: Rwanda