Jan. 16, 1932 - Dec. 26, 1985
Overview:
It began as an interest became a passion. Dian Fossey started working with gorillas in 1966 and studied their strong evolutionary-relationship with humans. She began to fight against the poachers that where hunting this endangered species. A fight which she gave her life to, literally.
Country:
United States of America
Type
of hero: Environmental, Cultural and Development Rights
Attributes:
Conservationist, Zoologist
Biography:
Dian Fossey originally trained as an occupational therapist and in 1956, and began work at a children’s hospital in Louisville.
In 1963, she went on a seven-week safari to Tanzania where she met Louis and Mary Leakey. Louis Leakey was an anthropologist and archaeologist. There is a story that on their fist meeting, Dian, not only slipped and sprained her ankle, but in the process, she fell on a specimen Louis Leakey had just uncovered. It is a wonder he gave her the help that he did. The two became good friends, and they decided to travel to the mountains in Zaire where there were a number of gorillas.
In 1966, she saw Jane Goodall for ideas then set up her own research station in the Virunga mountains. She founded the Karisoke Research Centre and remained pretty much by herself while studying the gorillas. The locals called her ‘Nyiram acibili’ ‘The woman who lives alone with the forest.
Leakey had pointed out to her the importance of studying gorillas for a long-term view of the evolution of humans. He had convinced Jane Goodall to be involved in the study and now wanted to add gorillas to his list. Dian was not all that healthy in some ways. She was asthmatic and she smoked. The thin air at 10,000 feet would not be easy to live with. On top of that, apparently when Leakey joked that she should have her appendix removed as a precaution before heading up the mountain, she took him seriously.
One of the most significant things that Dian was able to point out to the rest of the world was that gorillas were not the ferocious killers they were made out to be. They were affectionate family oriented animals – though they would attack in fear. She made extensive use of the National Geographic Magazine as well as television appearances to highlight the problems of poaching of Gorillas and in 1978 set up her patrols to stop poaching.
Her plea for conservation, called Gorillas in the Mist appeared in 1985. Her campaign to save the gorillas often involved her in tactics that resembled a war rather than a campaign. Nevertheless she saw this as a war to save the few remaining gorillas from extinction.
In 1985, she was found murdered – a victim it is thought of the poachers she had spent so much time fighting.
Citations
& References:
Links:
http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/fossey.htm
http://www.dianfossey.org/
http://www.gorillafund.org/
http://www.netsrq.com/~dbois/fossey.html
http://www.stanford.edu/class/wct3b1/lmunro/
http://www.belten.freeserve.co.uk/dian/dian.htm
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