Dian Fossey: “Old Lady Who Lives in the Forest Without a Man”

Dian Fossey, an occupational therapist, was interested in animals from childhood.

In 1963, fulfilling a long-standing dream to visit Africa, she took out a personal loan to pay her way and headed to the southern hemisphere, meeting paleontologists Mary and Louis S.  B.  Leakey on the way.

The two encouraged Dian to live her dream:  working with mountain gorillas.

Dian began actually living among the mountain gorillas in the Republic of the Congo (now Zaire).  Her close contact with the gorillas proved that the animals were peaceful vegetarians in danger of extinction from poaching and the depletion of their habitats.

Dian lived among 51 gorillas until civil war forced her to leave the area for Rwanda, where she was known by the Rwandans as Nyiramachabelli, or “the old lady who lives in the forest without a man.”

Her best-selling book, Gorillas in the Mist, established her as the world’s leading authority on the physiology and behavior of mountain gorillas and raised awareness of how these “gentle giants” with individual personalities and strong family bonds were dying out.

Sadly, her brave stand in defense of the mountain gorillas (via the media and by destroying poachers’ traps) angered poachers and government officials who wanted to convert gorilla habitats to farmland.

Dian was found brutally murdered on Christmas Eve, 1985.  Her murder was never solved.

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