Dian Fossey Amelia work year 5

Legacy
She managed a Gorilla fund to protect the endangered Gorilla’s and raised some money.Dian also befriended a Mountain gorilla called Digit and became good friends.She 
encountered him in 1967 and he was in a group of four.
Sadly after some time he was killed by poachers and then that’s when she began the Gorilla fund that was named the Digit fund.
After all the sadness and anger she had felt, she was murdered in 1985 on the 31st of September. The Digit fund was then renamed the Diane Fossey fund in her memory.
She was a wonderful person and had lots of really good gorilla friends and worked hard to help to protect them.
She will be remembered for looking after the Mountain Gorilla’s and also having that very special bond with Digit.
Dian also made a book called [Gorilla’s in the Mist] before she died, then after her death it was made into a film.
 
 

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Dian Fossey
Early Life
Dian Fossey was born on the 16 January 1932 in San Francisco California.
Her first parents were Kathryn and George Fossey .
When she was young her parents divorced and her mother remarried.
Later on in life she became interested in animals from a very young age and was a very good student at school.






At the age of six she started to do horseback riding and in high school she earned a letter from a riding team. She attended in college courses at Marin Junior college, she chose to focus on business following the encouragement of her father, a wealthy businessman.
During the summer holidays at school, she went to work at a ranch in Montana,but unfortunately they contracted Chicken Pox and were forced to leave. She did not want to leave because she had formed a very strong bond with the animals.
As life went on she also attended Darwin college a University of Cambridge.
 
 
Adult Life
She grew up to be an American Naturalist and started to study Mountain Gorilla’s in the forests of Rwanda and other places too.
She studied their survival as a species for 18 whole years .
WOW! How cool is that!
In Africa in 1963 she was working as an occupational therapist. She worked with children, which as part of their therapy meant working with animals. She thoroughly enjoyed this experience, which later lead her to follow her heart and to travel to Africa to work with primates.
 On the 16th of October she visited the travellers rest in Uganda,a hotel. It was close to the Virunga mountains and the mountain gorilla’s.
The hotel was owned by Walter Baumgartel.  He was an advocate for gorilla conservation and amongst  the first person to see the benefits that tourism could bring to the amazing area. 
Later on Baumgartel recommended that Dian should meet Joan and Alan Root who were wildlife photographers from Kenya. They both went there to make a documentary about the mountain gorilla’s to try and take some real footage of them. Then Dian managed to take some of her own footage and at that moment she decided to continue to learn more about these very intelligent creatures. She described these intelligent creatures as ‘Gorillas in the Mist’.
After that, she decided to stay and set up camp in the in Kabara Meadow where her studies of the Gorillas would continue. Alan Root helped her to get the the permits needed to stay there, help set up the camp and to hire the staff she required. 
She basically lived in the Jungles and Forests with the Mountain Gorilla’s and played and snuggled with them. She was also able to communicate with the Mountain Gorilla’s. She stayed in the forest of Rwanda for quite a long time.
She was asked to join the Henry’s on an African tour although she decided she could not go due the cost of the trip, however later she borrowed £8,000 and took out her life savings to make the trip a reality.
 
 
 
 
 

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