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The Battalion
Section B
Thursday, September 1, 1988
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roup tries to continue
fossey work in Africa
-New movie hoped to draw funds, interest
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WEDITOR'S NO DE — Dian Fossey
'ck o|> tluc'ht hard to protect the remnants
o\ Africa’s mountain gorillas and ap-
y thj. |Brenf/y paid for it with her life.
| ck Ij.'b N ()W (hose who carry on her work
tluu li M n y . l ^ e h°pe that a forthcoming
1 plant'■ w ' // e on fossey's singular adven-
ared B ie W7 ^ spur the public’s interest
"Bid donations.
■ ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP)—The
■ad of a fund that carries on pri-
k Bate researcher Dian Fossey’s work
■ter her murder in Africa expects a
" Hovie about Fossey’s life to pique the
public’s interest in the sometimes
Hagic plight of the endangered
lountain gorilla.
■ Claude Ramsey, head of the Digit
Tind — which continues Fossey’s
)rk today through the Englewood-
ised Morris Animal Foundation —
• hoping that the film this fall will
? ansi keep pressure on gorilla poachers
■d heighten awareness of one of
■e closest primate relatives of man.
I Fewer than 400 of the huge, gen-
tl< apes remain in the world today,
■one of them in captivity. Most live
in Rwanda’s Parc National des Vol-
Kns in central Africa’s Virunga
Mountains, where Fossey conducted
her studies.
■ “The gorillas come across as very
■iendly in the movie,” Ramsey said.
24-3(1
ielf f,
ion \
major
rain,
dlutioi
the i
emin
en, fit
up
and list’s going to make the world a lot
; ■ore conscious of the gorillas and
to hisBie problem of poaching.
fhursdiH “Since Dian Fossey’s death, poach-
«t Ji ing has diminished. There’s a full.”
“Gorillas in the Mist,” also the title
the book Fossey wrote about her
search, will feature actress Sigour-
|ey Weaver as the American re
archer.
I Fossey went to Rwanda in early
1967 at the urging of anthropologist
Dr. Louis Leakey and stayed on until
ler murder, w r hen she was 53, at Ka-
■soke Research Center on Mount
f iske.
I The Morris Animal Foundation
lopes that the mojne that documents
tossey’s workwill spur public dona
tions to the Digit Fund.
I Ramsey said that Karisoke Re
search Center needs $65,000 in
funds to keep up maintenance and
$100,000 worth of capital im
provements.
Fossey founded the Digit Fund in
1978, naming it after a male gorilla
she had befriended and studied clo
sely for 10 years before it was killed
by poachers on 12,000-foot Mount
Visoke.
His head and hands were cut off
to be sold as souvenirs.
“I am anxious to establish a ‘Digit
Fund’ to attempt to raise money to
“/ suspect he (the killer)
was hired, or suborned, by
influential people who in
creasingly viewed Dian as
a dangerous impediment
to the exploitation of the
Parc National des Vol-
cans, and especially to the
exploitation of the goril
las. ”
— Farley Mowat, in his bi
ography of Dian Fossey
maintain students, to train Rwan
dans in the patrol of the park and
for additional census work on the
Rwandan side of the Virungas so
that stronger efforts may be made to
protect them and to actively secure
their survival,” Fossey wrote during
1978.
“Here, at camp, we wake up each
morning wondering who will be
next,” she wrote.
Fossey began regular patrols of
Mount Visoke’s slopes to protect the
endangered gorillas and she also was
known to fire shots in order to
frighten intruders.
In at least one case, Fossey, who
had emphysema, helped other work
ers to chase and to capture a poacher
thought to be involved in Digit’s
death.
Poachers initially were suspected
of killing Fossey, but Rwanda gov
ernment officials and others have
ruled out that theory because of the
way she was killed.
Fossey was found dead on Dec.
28, 1985, on the floor of her Kari
soke cabin, her skull split by a large
knife that she owned.
Beside her on the floor of the
cabin were a pistol and also a clip of
ammunition.
The Rwandan government
charged Wayne McGuire, a student
researcher at Karisoke, with Fossey’s
murder, but no credible motive ever
was established.
McGuire fled to the United States,
which has no extradition agreement
with Rwanda.
A native tracker who had been
fired months earlier by Fossey also
was charged with the murder.
He died in a Rwandan jail.
Some observers think that Fos
sey’s vigorous conservation efforts
may have eventually led opposing
parties who wanted to expand the
economic development of Rwanda’s
volcanic region to plot her death.
Fossey was a staunch advocate of
minimal human contact with the go
rillas.
This stand put her at odds with
those people in the country who
wanted to use the endangered goril
las in order to lure tourists to the Vi
runga Mountains.
Fossey was concerned that the go
rillas would contract human dis-
easesj against which they have no im
munity.
Fossey eventually linked some of
the gorilla deaths on Mount Visoke
to their contact with humans.
“I suspect he (the killer) was
hired, or suborned, by influential
people who increasingly viewed
Dian as a dangerous impediment to
the exploitation of the Parc National
des Volcans, and especially to the ex
ploitation of the gorillas,” Farley
Mowat wrote in his biography of
Fossey, “Woman in the Mists.”
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Photo by Mike C. Mulvey
Doug Harris, a freshman member of Squadron 4,
gets his ‘fish cut’ in the MSC Barber Shop dining
the beginning of Freshman Orientation Week.
Freshmen in the Corps learn to.be unified, and
part of that lesson is having the same haircut — a
‘fish cut,’ which leaves hair one-quarter inch long.
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