Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey to me was a very mysterious, somewhat helpful and kind of troublemaking person. She seemed very adventurous and fun but she was also very serious. When it came to her job she was always serious. Dian Fossey studied gorillas. To me it is amazing how seriously she took that job. She did everything she could to protect those gorillas. I think the gorillas brought her happiness but also sadness, and other emotional problems. Dian Fossey lived up on a mountain by her self for a number of years. That begins to have an effect on you as well. It was very lonely up there on the mountain. She got a nickname rom her lifestyle, she was called "Nyirmachabelli", which means the woman who lives alone on the mountain. Poor Dian Fossey became an alcoholic up on that mountain. She also smoked three packs of cigarettes a day! I think those may have been the reasons of her constant mood swings and her unrational thinking. The unrational thinking also could be linked to her murder. You will hear some examples later on in this paper.

Dian did not start out working with gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda. She first had an office job at the Kosair Crippled Childrens Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm not really quite sure how Dian Fossey became interested in gorillas, but she did and thats all that really matters. The first time Dian ever saw a real mountain gorilla, was in a place called Kabara Meadow, with Joan and Alan Root. After that one special day, they were her friends from then on. Those two people i feel were important in her start with gorillas. Another person involved in her start with gorillas was a man by the name of Louis Leaky, the most eminent prehistorian of his genration. He was the man that gave Dian her start in Africa, after she convinced him of her determination. Louis Leakey believed that women were best suited emotionally and constitutionally for studying the great apes. It seems Dian was fit for the job, but not for some aspects of it. I think Dian became a little too attached to her gorillas. They became her family. The only ones she loved and cared for. She cared more about gorillas then she did Dian Fossey.

Dian Fossey first arrived in Africa filled with drive and energy. She was completly unprepared for the demands of the job, but she did not give up, she kept on going strong. She first started studying the gorillas from a distance mimicking her predecessor George Schaller. After a while, Dian started to get to know the gorillas. She became familiar with their personalities. She liked one of the gorillas especially. His name was Digit. What a cool name. After a while you can imagine Dian was sick of studying them from a distance. And one day, the day the photographer was leaving, she made her prolonged physical contact with the gorilla she loved, Digit. Dian's close contact with gorillas was remarkable but left her open to charges of anthropomorphism, which occurs when scientists unwhittingly project human characteristics onto their animal subjects. Dian Fossey didn't really care. I think when she started making contact with the gorillas was when things started to get out of hand. After that point, Dian became, I would like to say...a little obsessed with them. In Africa at the time, Poaching was kind of a big thing. It was also illeagle but people sill poached for money. It became sort of a personal war for Dian to stop the poachers and save her poor mountain gorillas. They were her only care. Dian made Rwanda famous for their gorillas. They became a tourist attraction for Rwanda. One thing no on understood was even though the gorillas important for the tourists,