Dian Fossey was an American zoologist who completed an extended study of gorilla groups over a period of 18 years. She observed them daily for years in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by famous paleontologist Louis Leakey.
Fossey enrolled in a pre-veterinary course in biology at the University of California, Davis and later transferred to San Jose State College. She subsequently received her PhD from Darwin College, Cambridge for a thesis entitled, “The Behaviour of the Mountain Gorilla” in 1976. Fossey became interested in Africa after seeing photographs and hearing about the continent from a friend who had been there. After taking out a loan in 1963, she embarked on a trip to Africa and met Dr. Louis Leakey.
Leakey talked to Fossey about the work of Jane Goodall and the importance of long term research of the great apes. By 1966, she gained the support of Dr. Leakey and carried out long-term research on the mountain gorillas. She began her field study in the Congo, but by 1967, political upheaval forced her to move to Rwanda. In 1967, she founded the Karisoke Research Center and became an international celebrity, bringing massive publicity to her cause of saving the mountain gorilla from extinction. She was brutally murdered on December 26, 1985.










































