英语名人堂：戴安·弗西

出生1932年1月16日美国，加利福尼亚州，旧金山逝世1985年12月27日 (53岁)卢旺达，火山国家公园公民权美国研究领域动物行为学，灵长类学任职于康奈尔大学，卡里索凯研究中心母校圣荷西州立大学(B.A.，职能治疗，1954)剑桥大学(Ph.D.，动物学，1974)著名成就对山地大猩猩的研究和保护受影响于珍·古道尔，路易斯·李奇，乔治·夏勒

Dian Fossey was an American zoologist who studied gorillas in Africa. Her research and life in the mountain forests of Rwanda made her famous. She wrote a book about her work, ‘Gorillas in the Mist’. A major Hollywood studio paid her a million dollars for the movie rights. Her brutal murder in 1985 had to be added to the film.

Fossey was born in 1932. She became interested in animals from a very early age and enrolled on a veterinary course. At university, she studied occupational therapy, which would help her later research. She became interested in Africa in her late twenties. She took out a loan and went to Tanzania, where she met the man who would change her life, anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey.

Fossey was encouraged by Dr. Leakey to carry out long-term research on mountain gorillas. In 1967, she set up the Karisoke Research Centre in the remote Rwanda rainforest. She became an international celebrity in 1970 after appearing on the cover of ‘National Geographic’ magazine. It brought huge publicity for her campaign to protect the mountain gorillas and save them from extinction.

Fossey was strongly opposed to zoos. In 1978, she tried to stop two young gorillas from being taken from Rwanda to a zoo in Germany. Twenty adult gorillas were killed during their capture. She also disagreed with “conservation tourism”, which disturbs the animals’ natural habitat. Many believe she was killed by those who wanted to make big money from gorilla tourism.