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 fierce 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 made discoveries about gorillas including how females transfer from group to group over the decades, gorilla vocalization, hierarchies and social
relationships among groups, rare infanticide, gorilla diet, and how gorillas
recycle nutrients. Fossey's research was funded by the Wilkie Foundation and
the Leakey Home, with primary funding from the National Geographic Society.
Cornell University and autobiography
By 1980, Fossey, who had
obtained her PhD at Cambridge University in the UK, was recognized as the
world's leading authority on the physiology and behavior of mountain gorillas,
defining gorillas as being "dignified, highly social, gentle giants, with
individual personalities, and strong family relationships."
Fossey lectured as professor at
Cornell University in 1981-1983. Her bestselling book Gorillas in the Mist was
praised by Nikolas 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.
Conservation
While poaching had been illegal
in the national park of the Virunga Volcanoes in Rwanda since the 1920s, 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 kidnappings would often result in up to
10 adult gorillas' deaths. Through the Digit Fund, Fossey financed patrols to
destroy poachers' traps in the Karisoke study area. In four months in 1979, the
Fossey patrol consisting of four African staffers destroyed 987 poachers' traps
in the research area's vicinity. The official Rwandan national park guards,
consisting of 24 staffers, did not eradicate any poachers' 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 had been 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, 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.
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