Two different stories about Fossey have emerged: One describes her as a loner who was disgusted with humanity and who belittled her fellow workers, orchestrated violent tortures of poachers, performed witchcraft on political enemies and even kidnapped the children of those that threatened “her” gorillas.
Though she had boundless patience and affection for the gorillas, she was by temperament and conviction often at odds with people.” Shortly after her murder, Montgomery Brower wrote of Fossey in People magazine (February 17, 1986): “Fossey, it appears, was no saint.
Much as one might discuss a relative with an unsavory past, Fossey’s reputation and fame always seemed tainted by something inappropriate. Throughout my undergraduate and graduate training in Anthropology, if Fossey was mentioned at all it was only briefly, and the professor quickly moved on to the less controversial Jane Goodall. She and her work were not uncontroversial.
The lack of theft and the brutal nature of the murder, reportedly inflicted by machete, suggested a range of possible suspects including disgruntled employees, vengeful poachers and angry locals. Thirty years ago this month Fossey was murdered in her field station while she slept.
Through visual references and careful description of behavior, Fossey replaced a fallacious stereotype of a King Kong-like, violent gorilla with an almost idealized image of a gorilla that was intelligent, family-oriented and peaceful.ġ984 Photograph of Dian Fossey by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. In the 1960s, famed paleontologist Louis Leakey challenged the historically male face of primatology by sponsoring the field research of Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall and Birute Galdikas – three women who would become affectionately known as the “trimates.”įossey’s observations of the reclusive mountain gorilla in Rwanda were detailed in her popular book Gorillas in the Mist and she worked tirelessly throughout her career to personalize this poorly known animal for people around the world.
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