Had it not been for Dian Fossey, there is no doubt in my mind that the mountain gorilla would by now have joined the list of extinct species.
Gilbert M. Grosvenor, Chairman, National Geographic Society
In 1967 Dian Fossey, until then an occupational therapist by profession, set up camp in Zaire (then the Congo) to observe mountain gorillas in their native habitat. She had visited Africa four years earlier, where she first saw the mountain gorilla. Later, when eminent anthropologist Louis Leakey came to the U.S. on a lecture tour, she contacted him. Leakey, who believed that women were suited to scientific observation of primates (he was also mentor to primatologist Jane Goodall), had been looking for a gorilla girl. He found in Dian the qualities he had been seeking.
Tall, shy, opinionated Dian spent the rest of her life studying and defending the gentle giants of the Virunga Mountains. Her passionate commitment to the subjects of her research led eventually to her murder in 1985.
Shortly after Dian began her NGS-supported research in the Virunga Mountains, civil unrest forced her over the border to Rwanda, where she established the Karisoke Research Center. She followed the groundwork in mountain gorilla research laid by George B. Schaller and adopted many of the methods Jane Goodall employed in her chimpanzee research, such as giving each of the animals a name as soon as she was able to distinguish it. Dian felt that the gorillas would be more relaxed around her if she seemed like one of them, so she used her observations to her advantage, munching on wild celery and mimicking gorilla vocalizations.
The creatures she observed were gentle vegetarians, not the fierce attackers depicted by popular culture over the years. They had strong family ties and even sacrificed their own lives in defense of the group. Shy by nature, Dian increasingly felt drawn to the gorillas and alienated from her own kind.
This alienation was most pronounced in her war against poachers. Although these hunters were seeking antelope rather than gorillas, the apes were often caught in their traps. They generally escaped from the traps, but often lost hands or feetor even lives if gangrene set in. When Digit, a personal favorite of Fosseys, was killed while defending his group from a chance meeting with poachers, her efforts to eliminate poaching accelerated. She established the Digit Fund, which still operates in support of mountain gorilla research and conservation. She also became more and more aggressive in dismantling snares and intimidating poachers.
On December 27, 1985, Dian Fossey was found murdered in her cabin at Karisoke. Although the killing has remained unsolved, it was most likely linked to her war on poaching.
Fosseys story was popularized in the movie Gorillas in the Mist, also the title of a book she wrote. Her legacy is the survival of the mountain gorilla and the publics awareness of the plight of this creature. In the recent war in Rwanda, both sides have agreed not to harm the gorillas; there has been only one gorilla casualty in spite of aggressions that have taken such an alarming human toll. Native Rwandans, often at odds with Fossey during her lifetime, are increasingly proud of the creature inhabiting their mountain forests and committed to its survival.