Dian Fossey - Gorillas in the Mist

[KALKI]

"When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future."

Dian Fossey (January 16, 1932 in San Francisco, California – December 26, 1985, Virunga Mountains, Rwanda) was an American zoologist who undertook an extensive study of gorilla groups over a period of 18 years. She observed them daily for years in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by famous paleontologist Louis Leakey. She was murdered in 1985, possibly by poachers.

Her work is somewhat similar to Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees.

• Born January 16, 1932
• San Francisco, California, USA
• Died December 26, 1985 (aged 53)
• Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda
• Citizenship United States
• Fields Ethology, primatology
• Institutions Karisoke, Cornell University
• Alma mater University of Cambridge
• Known for Seminal contributions to primatology
• Influences Jane Goodall, Louis Leakey, George Schaller

Education
The first college Fossey went to was Marin Junior College, and she took business classes.Fossey enrolled in a pre-veterinary course in biology at the University of California, Davis, after attending Lowell High School in San Francisco, going against the advice of her stepfather who wanted her to pursue business instead. She supported herself by working as a clerk at White Front (a department store), doing other clerking and laboratory work, and working as a machinist in a factory. Fossey later transferred to San José State College (now San José State University) to study occupational therapy after having difficulty with chemistry and physics. She received her bachelor's degree in 1954. At that time, Fossey also established herself as an equestrian.

Initially following her college major, Fossey began a career in occupational therapy, eventually becoming director of the occupational therapy department at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. While working in Louisville (living a few miles south of the town on a farm called Glenmary) she attended a lecture by Louis Leakey. She subsequently received her PhD from Darwin College, Cambridge, for a thesis entitled "The behavior of the mountain gorilla" in 1976. Between 1981 and 1983 Dian Fossey lectured as Professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Interest in Africa
Fossey became interested in Africa after seeing photos and hearing about it from her friend Mary White Henry, who had been there. After taking out a loan in 1963, Fossey embarked on a trip to Africa. At Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, Fossey met Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife Mary Leakey while they were examining the area for hominid fossils. Louis talked to Fossey about the work of Jane Goodall and the importance of long term research of the great apes, work pioneered by George Schaller. After leaving the Leakeys, Fossey saw her first wild mountain gorillas during a visit to Uganda.

By 1966, Fossey had gained the support of Dr. Leakey, and through him, funds to carry out long-term research on the mountain gorillas. She began her field study at Kabara, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire), but by 1967, political upheaval, involving battles breaking out throughout Zaire, forced her to move to Rwanda.

Work
In 1967, she founded the Karisoke Research Center, a remote rainforest camp nestled in the Virunga Mountains in Ruhengeri province, Rwanda. When her photograph, taken by Bob Campbell, appeared on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in January 1970, Fossey became an international celebrity, bringing massive publicity to her cause of saving the mountain gorilla from extinction, as well as convincing the general public that gorillas are not as bad as they are sometimes depicted in movies and books. Photographs showing the gorilla "Peanuts" touching Fossey's hand depicted the first recorded peaceful contact between a human being and a wild gorilla. Her extraordinary rapport with animals and her background as an occupational therapist brushed away the Hollywood "King Kong" myth of an aggressive, savage beast.

Fossey strongly supported "active conservation"—for example anti-poaching patrols and preservation of natural habitat—as opposed to "theoretical conservation", which includes the promotion of tourism. She was also strongly opposed to zoos, as the capture of individual animals all too often involves the killing of their family members. Many animals do not survive the transport, and the breeding rate and survival rate in zoos are often lower than in the wild. For example, in 1978, Fossey attempted to prevent the export of two young gorillas, Coco and Pucker, from Rwanda to the Cologne, Germany, zoo. She learned that, during their capture, 20 adult gorillas had been killed. The two captives were given to Fossey by their captors for treatment of injuries suffered during capture and captivity. With considerable effort, she restored them to some approximation of health. They were shipped to Cologne, where they lived nine years in captivity, both dying in the same month. She viewed the holding of animals in "prison" (zoos) for the entertainment of people as unethical.

Fossey is responsible for the revision of a European Community project that converted parkland into pyrethrum farms. Thanks to her efforts, the park boundary was lowered from the 3,000-meter line to the 2,500-meter line.

When Fossey's favourite gorilla, Digit, was decapitated for the price of $20 by poachers in 1977, she created the Digit Fund with the intent to raise money for anti-poaching patrols.

Fossey's 1983 autobiographical book Gorillas in the Mist was praised by Nikolaas Tinbergen, the Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who won the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her book remains the best-selling book about gorillas of all time

Death
Fossey was murdered in the bedroom of her cabin on December 26, 1985. Her skull had been split by a panga (machete), a tool widely used by poachers, which she had confiscated years earlier and hung as a decoration on the wall of her living room adjacent to her bedroom. Fossey was found dead beside her bed and two meters away from the hole in the cabin that was cut on the day of her murder.[3] Despite the violent nature of the wound, there was relatively little blood in her bedroom, leading some to believe that she was killed before the head-wound was inflicted, as head wounds, even superficial ones, usually bleed profusely.

Farley Mowat's biography of Fossey, Woman in the Mists, suggests that it is unlikely that she was killed by poachers. Mowat believes that she was killed by those who viewed her as an impediment to the touristic and financial exploitation of the gorillas. According to the book, which includes many of Fossey's private letters, poachers would have been more likely to kill her in the forest, with little risk to themselves.

On the night of Fossey's murder, a metal sheeting from her bedroom was removed at the only place of the bedroom where it would not have been obstructed by her furniture, which supports the case that the murder was committed by someone who was familiar with the cabin and her day-to-day activities. The sheeting of her cabin, which was normally securely locked at night, might also have been removed after the murder to make it appear as if the killing was the work of poachers. But, according to Mowat, it is unlikely that a stranger could have entered her cabin by cutting a hole and then going to her living-room to get the panga, giving Fossey time to escape. The cabin showed signs of a struggle as there was broken glass on the floor and tables and other furniture overturned. Fossey was found dead with her gun beside her but the ammunition didn't fit the weapon. All Fossey's valuables were still in the cabin - thousands of dollars in cash and travelers' checks, and photo equipment remained untouched — valuables a poor poacher would most likely have taken.

After Fossey's death, her entire staff, including Rwelekana, a tracker she had fired months before, was arrested. All but Rwelekana, who was later found dead in prison, supposedly having hanged himself, were released. Mowat believes that Fossey was murdered by an African man she may have admitted inside her cabin but who was working for the very people who wanted her removed so the gorillas could be exploited as a tourist and entertainment attraction.

Fossey is interred in Rwanda at Karisoke Research Station in a site that she herself had constructed for her dead gorilla friends. She was buried in the gorilla graveyard next to Digit, who was killed and beheaded in 1977, and near many gorillas killed by poachers. Today, the Karisoke Research Center is operated by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and continues the daily gorilla monitoring and protection that she started.

Fossey's will stated that all her money (including proceeds from the movie) should go to the Digit Fund to finance anti-poaching patrols. However, her mother, Kitty Price, challenged the will and won.

The director of ORTPN, Habirameye, who refused to renew Fossey's last visa request, insisted at the filming of Gorillas in the Mist that there should be as little about the death scene as possible.


Legacy
After her death, Fossey's Digit Fund in the U.S. was renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. The Digit Fund in the UK, which Fossey lost to the Fauna Protection League (FPS), was also renamed after her as "The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund UK" (DFGF-UK). However she never received any funds collected in her name by the FPS; and although some conservationists associated with the FPS wanted her to be removed from Rwanda FPS and the DFGF-UK (which renamed itself The Gorilla Organization in 2006), they continue to use her name up to this day for their financial purposes (including promotion of tourism, which Fossey opposed, and the financing of local bureaucrats).

One of Fossey's friends, Shirley McGreal, continues to work for the protection of primates through the work of her International Primate Protection League (IPPL) one of the few wildlife organizations that according to Fossey effectively promotes "active conservation".

In his book "The Dark Romance" H. Hayes writes that after Fossey's death no poacher dared to enter the forest out of fear of being arrested as a murder suspect and that after the conviction of one of her students poaching soared again, eliminating all remaining elephants and leopards.

Between Fossey's death until the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Karisoke was directed by former students who had opposed her. During the genocide, the camp was completely looted and destroyed. Today only remnants remain of her cabin, as it had been converted into a museum for tourists at the time. During the civil war the Virunga parks were filled with refugees and illegal logging destroyed vast areas.

Today, the Rwandan people have realized the importance of the mountain gorillas and their natural habitat. They have returned to the past by bringing back Kwita Izina - the Baby Gorilla Naming Ceremony in which each baby gorilla gets a name.