Diane Fossey

Her life and her engagment for saving the mountain gorilla from extinction. Diane Fossey was an American zoologist who first studied in the University of California as a veterinary. One day after seeing photographs from a friend who had been in Africa, she discovered a really fascination about this large country. Thats how she made her first trip in Tanzania in 1963. There, she met M and Ms Leakey who worked at a hominid fossil area. In 1967, she founded the Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga mountains ,Rwanda. There, she achieved to go near gorillas in their natural environment and was accepted by the dominant male. She created close ties with all the community. In january 1970 Bob Campbell, the National Geographic Magazine photographer, involved by Diane Fossey determination, took photos showing her surrounded by gorillas. Thanks to this article Diane became an international celebrity. Her advertisement is clear : 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.

Poaching:
Nevertheless during the civil war in the unsafe montains, gorillas suffered poaching to be sent in zoos in return for money. Diane lost about 10 gorillas of the community. In 1985 she was brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin, probably by poachers who desapproved her generous commitment. Diane Fossey involvment cost her the life.

Her work is somewhat similar to Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees. She related her unique experience in the form of memoirs, which were adapted for the cinema, under the title of: "gorillas in the mist".