Women Scientists

Dian Fossey 1932-85

At a glance:

great apes expert murdered because of her work with gorillas

Dian Fossey pursued a career as an occupational therapist, although she wanted to be a scientist. However, she didn't have the necessary skills with physics or chemistry. She went on to became director of an occupational therapy department in Kentucky until she met Dr Louis Leakey who was giving a lecture in Louisville. in 1966, through him, she began long term research on mountain gorillas, first in Zaire and then in Rwanda. She strongly supported active conservation through anti poaching patrols and preservation of natural habitat. She is portrayed as eccentric and difficult, features that in male scientists are thought endearing but which in women are regarded as evidence of mental instability. She was brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin in 1985, felled by a blow from a poacher's weapon to the head that she kept on display as a souvenir. The perpetrator has never been found but there is speculation that it was either poachers in a revenge killing or an effort to prevent her disrupting profitable plans for tourism.
Dian Fossey

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