Called one of the foremost primatologists in the world while she was still alive, Fossey along with Jane Goodall and Birute Galdikas, were part of the so called Leaky's Angels, a group of three prominent researchers on primates (Fossey on Gorillas, Goodall on Chimpanzee and Galdikas on the Orangutans) sent by anthropologist Louis Leaky to study the great apes in their natural environments.
LIFE AND CAREER
Dian Fossey was born in San Francisco California to George E. Fossey III, an insurance agent and Kathryn "Kitty" (Kidd) Fossey, a fashion model. Her father was a US navy Sailor. Her parents Divorced when she was 6 and her mother remarried the following year to business man Richard Price. Her father tried to keep in contact but her mother discouraged it and all contact was subsequently lost. Dian's step father, Richard Price never took in Dian as his own child. He would not allow Dian to sit at the dinning room table with him or Dian's mother during dinner meals. A man adhering to strict discipline Richard Price offered little to no emotional support. Struggling to insecurity, Dian turned to animals as a way to gain acceptance. Her love for animals began first pet goldfish and continued through out her entire life. At age six, she began horse back riding earning a letter from her school. By her graduation in 1954, Fossey had established her self as an equestrienne.
EDUCATION
Educated at Lowell High School and following the guidance of her stepfather she enrolled in a business course at the college of Marin. However Spending her summer on the ranch in Montana at the age of 19 rekindled her love of animals and she enrolled in pre-veterinary course in biology at the university of California, Davis. In Defiance to her stepfather's wishes that she attend a business school, Dian desired to spend her professional life working with animals. As a consequence, Dian's parents failed to give her any substantial amount of financial support through out her adult life. She supported herself by working as a clerk at White Front (a department store), doing other clerking and laboratory work and laboring as a machinist in a factory.
Although Fossey had always been an exemplary student, she had difficult with base sciences including Chemistry and Physics and failed her second year of the program. She transferred to San Jose State College to study Occupational therapy, receiving her bachelors' degree in 1954. Initially following her college major, Fossey began a career in occupational therapist. She interned at various hospitals in California and worked with tuberculosis patients. Dian Fossey spent the beginning part of her career as an occupational therapist at Kosair Crippled Children's Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky in 1958. She directed the occupational therapy department there.
Her shy and reserved personality allowed her to work well with the children at the hospital. She continued to work there and eventually another worker allowed her to live with and become part of their family. Fossey lived on the farm and worked with the livestock on a daily basis and there she experienced an inclusive family atmosphere that was missing for most of her life through the Henry family who owned the farm. During her free time she would pursue her love for horses. Fossey was originally a prizewinning equestrian which drew her to Kentucky in 1955 and it was about a year later that she started her job at the Kosair Crippled Children's Hospital. In 1963 took a leave of absence to travel to Africa for seven weeks. In 1966 quit her job once Louise Leaky confirmed that she would receive funding for her research with the mountain Gorillas.
INTEREST IN AFRICA
Fossey become friends with Mary White "Gaynee" Henry secretary to the chief administrator at the hospital and wife to one of the doctors, Micheal J. Henry. Fossey turned down an offer to join the couple on an African tour due to lack of finances, but in 1963 she borrowed $8000, a one year's salary and went on a seven-week visit to Africa. In September 1963 she arrived Nairobi, Kenya and while there she met actor William Holden, owner of Treetops Hotel who introduced her to a safari guide, John Alexander. Alexander became her guide for the seven weeks that followed through Kenya, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe. Alexander's route included visits to Tsavo, Africa's Largest National Park, the saline lake of Manyara, famous for attracting famous giants of flocks and the Ngorongoro Crater, well known for abundant wildlife. The final two sites for her visit were Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (the archaeological site of Louis and Mary Leaky) and Mt. Mikeno in Congo, where in 1959, American zoologist Schaller had carried out a year long pioneering study of the mountain gorilla. At Olduvai Gorge, Fossey met Leaky and his wife while they were examining the area for hominid fossils. Leaky talked to Fossey about the work of Jane Goodall and the importance of long term research on the great apes. Although she had broken her ankle while visiting the Leaky s, by October 16, Fossey was staying in Walter Baumgartel's Small hotel in Uganda, the Traveler's Rest. Baumgartel and advocate of gorilla conservation, was the first to see the benefits that tourism could bring toarea and he introduced Fossey to Kenyan wildlife photographers Joan and Allan Root. The couple agreed to allow Fossey and Alexander to camp behind their own camp and it was during these few days that Fossey first encountered the wild mountain gorillas. After staying with friends in Rhodesia, Fossey returned home to Louisville her loans. She published three articles in The Courier-Journal newspaper detailing her visit to Africa
RESEARCH IN THE CONGO
When Leakey made an appearance in Louisville while on a nationwide lecture tour, Fossey took the color supplements that had appeared about her African trip in the The Courier-Journey to show Leakey, who remembered her and her interest in mountain gorillas. Three years after the original safari, Leakey suggested that Fossey could undertake a long term study of the gorillas in the same manner as Jane Goodall had done with the Chimpanzee in Tanzania.
After studying Swahili and auditing a class on primatology during the eight months it took to get her visa and funding, Fossey arrived in Nairobi in December 1966. With the help of Joan Root and Leaky, Fossey acquired the necessary provisions and an old canvas topped Land Rover which she named "lily". on the way to Congo Fossey Visited the Gombe Stream Research Center to meet Goodall and observe her research methods with the Chimpanzees. Accompanied photographer Allan Root who helped her obtain work permits for the Virunga mountains, Fossey began her field study at Kabara in the Congo in early 1967, in the same meadow where Schaller had made his camp seven years earlier. Root taught her basic gorilla tracking and his tracker Sanwekwe later helped in Fossey's camp. Living in tents on mainly tinned produce, once a month Fossey would hike down the mountain to "Lily" and make a two hour drive to the village of Kikumba to restock.
Fossey identified three distinct groups in her study area but could not get close to them. She eventually found that mimicking their actions and making grunting sounds assured them together submissive behavior and eating of local celery plant. She later attributed her success with habituating gorillas to her experience working as an occupational therapist with autistic children. Like George Schaller, Fossey relied greatly on individual nose prints for identification, initially by sketching and later by camera.
Fossey had arrived in the Congo in locally turbulent time. Known as the Belgian Congo until its independence in June 1990, unrest and rebellion plagued the new government until 1965 when Lieutenant General Joseph-Desire Mobutu by then commander in chief of the national army seized control of the country and declared himself president for five years during what is now known as the Congo Crisis. During the political upheaval, a rebellion and battles took place in the Kivu province. On July 9, 1967, soldiers arrived at the camp to escort Fossey and her research workers down and she was interned at Rumagambo for two weeks. Fossey eventually escaped through bribery to Walter Baumgartel's Traveler's Rest Hotel in Kisoro where her escort was arrested by Uganda Military. Advised by Uganda authorities not to return to Congo, after meeting Leakey in Nairobi Fossey agreed with him against US Embassy advise to restart her study on the Rwandan side of the Virungas. In Rwanda, Fossey had met local America expatriate Rosamond Carr who introduced her to Belgian local Alyette DeMunck. DeMunck had a local's knowledge of Rwanda and offered to find Fossey a suitable site for study.
CONSERVATION WORK IN RWANDA
On September 24 1967, Fossey founded the Karisoke Research Center, a remote rain forest camp nestled in Ruhengeri province in the saddle of two volcanoes. For the research center's center's name Fossey used "Kari" for the for letters of MT. Karisimbi that overlooked her camp from the south and "soke" for the last for letters of MT. Visoke, the slopes of which rose to the north directly behind the camp. Established 3,000 meters up Mount Visoke the defined study area covered 25 square kilometers. She became known by the locals as Nyirmachabeli, roughly translated as "The woman who lives alone in the mountain". Unlike the gorillas in Congo, the Karisoke area gorillas had been partially harbitauted by Schaller's study. They knew humans only as poaches and it took longer for Fossey to be able to study the Karisoke gorillas at a close distance.
Many research students left after not being able to handle the cold, dark and exremely nuddy conditions around Karisoke on the slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes where paths usually have have to be cut through six-foot tall grass with a machete
OPPOSITION TO POACHING
While poaching had been illegal in the national park of of the Virunga Volcanoes in Rwanda since 1920's the law was rarely enforced by park conservators, who were often bribed by poachers and paid a salary less than Fossey's own African staff. On three occasions Fossey wrote that she witnessed the aftermath of the capture of infant gorillas at the behest of the park conservators for zoos, since gorillas will fight to the death to protect their young, the kidnapping would result into up to 10 gorilla deaths. Through the Digit fund Fossey financed patrols to destroys poachers traps in the Karisoke study area. In four months in 1779, the Fossey patrol consisting of four African staffers destroyed 987 poacher's traps in the research area vicinity. The official Rwandan national park guards consisting of 24 staffers did not eradicate any poacher's traps during the same period. In the eastern portion of the park not patrolled by Fossey, poachers virtually eradicated all the park's elephants for ivory and killed more than a dozen gorillas.
Dr. Fossey helped in the arrest of several poachers, some of whom served or are serving long prison sentences. In 1978, Fossey attempted to prevent the export of two young gorillas, Coco and Pucker from Rwanda to the zoo in Cologne, Germany. During the capture of the infants at the behest of the Cologne Zoo and Rwandan park conservator, 20 adult gorillas were killed. The infant gorillas were given to Fossey by the park conservator of the Virunga Volcanoes for treatment of injuries suffered during their capture and captivity. With considerable effort, she restored them to some approximation of health. Over Fossey's objections, the gorillas were shipped to Cologne were they lived nine years in Captivity both dying in the same month. She viewed the holding of animals in zoos for entertainment of people as unethical. While gorillas from fringe groups on the mountains that were not part of Fossey's study had often been found poached five to ten at a time and had spurred Fossey to conduct her own anti poaching patrols Fossey's group had not been direct victims of poaching until Fossey's favored gorilla Digit was killed in 1978. Later that year the silver back of Digit's group 4 named for Fossey's uncle Bert was shot in the heart while trying to save his son, kweli from being seized by the poachers cooperating with the Rwandan national park conservator. Kweli's mother Macho was also killed in the raid but kweli was not captured due to Uncle Bert's intervention. However three year old Kweli died slowly and painfully of gangrene from being brushed by a poacher's bullet.
According to Fossey's letters, ORTPN (the Rwandan national park system), the wildlife fund, African Wildlife Foundation, Fauna Preservation Society, the Mountain Gorilla Project and some of her former students tried to wrest control of the Karisoke research center from her for the purpose of tourism by portraying her as unstable. In her last two years, Fossey claims not have lost any gorillas to poachers. However the Mountain Gorilla Project which was supposed to patrol the Mount Sabyinyo area tried to cover up gorilla deaths caused by poaching and diseases transmitted through tourists. Nevertheless, these organisations received most of the public donations directed toward gorilla conversations. The public often believed that their money would go to Fossey who was struggling to finance her anti-poaching and bush meat hunting patrols while organisations collecting in her name put it into tourism projects as she put it "to pay the airfare of so called conservationists who will never go on anti-poaching patrols in their lives" Fossey described the two differing philosophies as her own "active conservation" or the international conservation groups "theoretical conservation"
OPPOSITION TO TOURISM
Dian Fossey strongly opposed tourism as gorillas are very susceptible to disease by humans like the flu for which they have no immunity. Dian Fossey reported several cases in which gorillas died because of diseases spread by tourists. She also viewed tourism as an interference into their natural wild life behavior. Fossey also criticized tourist programs often paid for by international conversational organisations for interfering with both her research and the peace of the mountain gorillas habitat. Today however the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International recognizes the importance of tourism in helping to a stable and sustainable local community dedicated to protecting the gorillas and their habitat
PERSONAL LIFE
During her African safari, Fossey met Alexie Forester, brother of an African she had been dating in Louisville. Fossey and Forester became engaged. In her later years, Fossey became involved with National Geographic Photographer Bob Campbell after a year of working together at Karisoke with Campbell promising to leave his wife. Eventually the pair grew apart through her dedication to gorillas and Karisoke along with his need to further a field and his marriage. In 1970 during her time in Cambridge studying to get her Ph. D, she discovered she was pregnant and had an abortion, later commenting that "you can't be a cover girl for National Geographic Magazine and be Pregnant". Fossey had other relationships throughout her carrier and always had a love for children. Since Fossey would rescue any abused or abandoned animal she saw in Africa or near Karisoke, she acquired a menagerie in the camp including a monkey who lived in her cabin, Kima and a dog. Cindy. Fossey held Christmas parties every year for her researchers, staffers and their families and she developed a genuine friendship with Jane Goodall.
Fossey had been plagued by lung problems from an early age and later in her in her life, she suffered from advanced emphysema brought on by years of heavy cigarette smoking. As the debilitating disease progressed and further aggravated by the mountain altitude and damp climate, Fossey found it increasingly difficult to conduct field research, frequently suffering from shortness of breath and requiring the help of an oxygen tank when climbing or hiking long distances.
DEATH
Fossey was discovered murdered in the bedroom of her cabin in Virunga Mountains of Rwanda in the late December 1985. She was discovered 2 meters away from a hole that her assailant(s) had apparently cut in the wall of the cabin.
She was presumably in the act of loading her weapon when she was murdered but had picked the wrong type of ammunition during the struggle. The cabin was littered with broken glass and overturned furniture. Robbery was not believed to be the motive of the crime as Fossey's valuables were still in the cabin, thousands of dollars in cash, traveler's checks and photo equipment remained untouched. The last entry in her diary read;
"When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of future."
Fossey is buried in Karisoke in a site that she her self constructed for her gorilla friends. She was buried in the gorilla grave yard next to Digit and near many gorillas killed by poachers. Memorial services were held also in New York, Washington and California.
After Fossey's Death, her entire staff including Rwelekana, a tracker she had fired months before were arrested. All but Rwelekana who was later found dead in prison supposedly having hanged himself, were released. Rwandan Courts later tried and convicted Wayne McGuire, Fossey's last research assistant at Karisoke for her Murder. McGuire was convicted in absentia after he had returned to the United States following the murder and because no extradition treaty exists between the U.S. and the Rwanda McGuire whose guilt is still widely questioned will not serve his sentence unless he returns to Rwanda's Jurisdiction.
Fossey's Will state that all her money (including proceeds from the film gorilla in the mist) should go to the Digit Fund to Finance anti-poaching patrols. However her mother Kitty Price challenged the Will and was successful.
LEGACY
After her death, Fossey's DIGIT Fund in the U.S was renamed the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. The Karisoke Research Center is operated by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and continues the daily gorilla monitoring and protection that she started.
One of Fossey's Friends, Shirley McGreal, continues to work for the protection of the primates through the work of her International Primate Protection League, one of the few wildlife organisations that according to Fossey effectively promoted "active conservation"
Between Fossey's death until the 1994 genocide, Karisoke was directed by former students, some of whom had opposed her. During the genocide and subsequent period of insecurity, the camp was completely looted and destroyed. Today only remnants of her cabin remain. During the civil war, the Virunga parks were filled with refuges and illegal logging destroyed vast areas.
Today the Rwandan people have realized the importance of mountain gorillas and their natural habitat. They have adapted the traditional household baby naming ceremony Kwita Izina into the Baby Gorilla Naming Ceremony in which each baby gorilla is given a name by invited guests and celebrities at an annual internationally famous event under the patronage of the president.
LIKE SOME SAID NO ONE KNEW THE GORILLA BETTER DIAN FOSSEY
MAY HER SOUL REST IN ETERNAL PEACE
For more information on how to visit Rwanda to see the Gorillas and perharps do a hike to the Dian Fossey Grave visit www.equatorialwildsafaris.com or make an inquiry through office@equatorialwildsafais.com
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