Dian's Close Contact With Gorillas example essay topic

Dian Fossey Dian Fossey to me was a very mysterious, somewhat helpful and kind of troublemaking person. She seemed very adventurous and fun but she was also very serious. When it came to her job she was always serious. Dian Fossey studied gorillas. To me it is amazing how seriously she took that job.

She did everything she could to protect those gorillas. I think the gorillas brought her happiness but also sadness, and other emotional problems. Dian Fossey lived up on a mountain by her self for a number of years. That begins to have an effect on you as well. It was very lonely up there on the mountain. She got a nickname rom her lifestyle, she was called 'Nyirmachabelli', which means the woman who lives alone on the mountain.

Poor Dian Fossey became an alcoholic up on that mountain. She also smoked three packs of cigarettes a day! I think those may have been the reasons of her constant mood swings and her un rational thinking. The un rational thinking also could be linked to her murder. You will hear some examples later on in this paper. Dian did not start out working with gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda.

She first had an office job at the Kos air Crippled Childrens Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm not really quite sure how Dian Fossey became interested in gorillas, but she did and that's all that really matters. The first time Dian ever saw a real mountain gorilla, was in a place called Kanara Meadow, with Joan and Alan Root. After that one special day, they were her friends from then on. Those two people i feel were important in her start with gorillas. Another person involved in her start with gorillas was a man by the name of Louis Leaky, the most eminent prehistorian of his generation.

He was the man that gave Dian her start in Africa, after she convinced him of her determination. Louis Leakey believed that women were best suited emotionally and constitutionally for studying the great apes. It seems Dian was fit for the job, but not for some aspects of it. I think Dian became a little too attached to her gorillas. They became her family.

The only ones she loved and cared for. She cared more about gorillas then she did Dian Fossey. Dian Fossey first arrived in Africa filled with drive and energy. She was completely unprepared for the demands of the job, but she did not give up, she kept on going strong. She first started studying the gorillas from a distance mimicking her predecessor George Schaller. After a while, Dian started to get to know the gorillas.

She became familiar with their personalities. She liked one of the gorillas especially. His name was Digit. What a cool name. After a while you can imagine Dian was sick of studying them from a distance. And one day, the day the photographer was leaving, she made her prolonged physical contact with the gorilla she loved, Digit.

Dian's close contact with gorillas was remarkable but left her open to charges of anthropomorphism, which occurs when scientists unwittingly project human characteristics onto their animal subjects. Dian Fossey didn't really care. I think when she started making contact with the gorillas was when things started to get out of hand. After that point, Dian became, I would like to say... a little obsessed with them. In Africa at the time, Poaching was kind of a big thing. It was also ill eagle but people sill poached for money.

It became sort of a personal war for Dian to stop the poachers and save her poor mountain gorillas. They were her only care. Dian made Rwanda famous for their gorillas. They became a tourist attraction for Rwanda.

One thing no on understood was even though the gorillas important for the tourists, why the government didn't do anything to protect them. Dian felt she had to do something about this. She tried getting the government to do something about it but still nothing was done. She wanted stronger penalties against the poachers. Dian then decided to take it upon herself to save the poor gorillas she loved so much. The government was getting very annoyed with her constant bugging and the poachers were getting even more annoyed that it was harder for them to poach.

National Geographic was with Dian and had photographers. She figured since they were profiting too, she wanted them to fund her. They agreed and so she set up a group of people to stop the poachers. I think the poachers brought out a bad side in Fossey. When she caught a poacher she was crazy with them. She tortured and threatened until she got what she wanted, then she turned them over to the government.

Her poor gorillas had to be safe. Especially Digit, he had to be safe. I think that her hostile and unusual behavior was an effect of her drinking. Also I think that living on that mountain alone started to make her crazy.

Her most dreaded thought was the death of digit. She could not let that happen. She saw Digit was growing up. She had new him since he was so little but now she had to accept the fact he was grown up and now has to take his role in the family. He had to watch and protect his family from danger. One day, it happened.

Digit was found dead with his body severely mangled. Dian was very angered and saddened by this and she felt she had to do more. She sent letters out to other places letting them know what was going on and when the funding stopped, she turned to her fame with gorillas to relieve money. And when she did, she started the Digit fund. A lot of money was put towards protecting the gorillas. This made the Rwandan government look bad by not contributing to the safety of their tourist attractions.

After she found the poacher that killed Digit, that's when Rwanda definitely wanted her out. She threatened to hang him and put his head in a noose, but she didn't. Then she brought it to the governments attention that she wanted a death penalty for poaching. They now just saw her as crazy and wanted her to leave because they felt she is doing more damage than good. But on December 27, 1981, Dian Fossey was found murdered in her shack.

No one knew why or who. But on her gravestone is engraved, 'Nyirmachabelli', the women who lives alone on the mountain.