Dian Fossey

American zoologist, gorilla researcher (1932–1985)

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Lived 1932–1985, aged 53United States

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Wikipedia
67 languages
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Era
1932–1985
Aged 53
Known for
30 Years of National G…
1995

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

She lived alone in the Rwandan mountain forests for 20 years studying gorillas up close, fought poachers with a ferocity that made enemies, and was found murdered in her cabin in 1985 — the killer never conclusively identified.

Biography

About

Dian Fossey arrived in Rwanda's mountain forests in 1966, sent by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to study gorillas in the wild as part of a trio of women he recruited to work with great apes. She built the Karisoke Research Center and spent two decades observing gorilla groups daily, documenting their behavior and intelligence in ways that shifted how the world saw them. Her work was uncompromising: she supported conservation hard, stood against poaching and tourism intrusions, and made powerful adversaries in the process. In 1983 she published Gorillas in the Mist, her account of the scienc…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey

said1985

I have no friends. The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

— Quoted in an interview with the AP (1985)

Dian Fossey

said1985

When you realize the value of all life, you learn to dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

— Fossey's last journal entry before her murder (1985)

Dian Fossey

said1983

It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes.

— From Gorillas in the Mist (1983)

Dian Fossey

said1979

It is only a matter for the President to give the order—KILL—the prisons are already overcrowded and this is the only way we are going to be able to protect the remaining gorillas.

— From a letter to the American ambassador in Rwanda (1979)

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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