| | Gorillas in the Mist |  | Author: Dian Fossey
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Category: Book
List Price: $10.95
Buy Used: $4.95
You Save: $6.00 (55%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 5699727
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 326
ISBN: 0685068021
EAN: 9780685068021
ASIN: 0685068021
Publication Date: January 1983
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Houghton, c1983, 326pp, photos, trade paperback. Very good
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Amazon.com
In 1963, an occupational therapist from Kentucky, in uncertain health and spirits, traveled to central Africa in the quixotic hope of seeing a mountain gorilla in its natural habitat. Dian Fossey had read everything she could about the reclusive and much-feared animal, and she returned from her trip convinced that most of the books were wrong. During her seven-week stay in Africa, Fossey had a chance encounter with the famed primatologists Mary and Louis Leakey, who encouraged her to follow her dream of living among the mountain gorillas and learning their ways. In 1967 she did just that, setting up a camp on the slopes of the 14,000-foot Virunga Volcanoes of Rwanda and studying four gorilla families there. Although it took them some time to accept Fossey's presence among them, she was immediately impressed by their peaceful nature and by their generous, guileless behavior--so unlike the images found in popular culture. But, Fossey discovered, despite their peaceable way of life, the gorillas had many enemies in the form of poachers who hunted them for their hands, skins, and heads--ghastly remains sold to the tourist market. Much of Fossey's thoughtful but often rightly angry memoir Gorillas in the Mist is a well-reasoned plea for the protection of the gorillas and the suppression of the poachers' black market. That argument found a wide audience when her book was published in 1983, but Fossey's work remains unfinished: she was murdered, probably by those very poachers, in 1985, and today there are fewer than 650 mountain gorillas in the wild. To read Gorillas in the Mist is a first step for anyone concerned with their preservation, and that of other wild species everywhere. --Gregory McNamee
Product Description
One of the most important books ever written about our connection to the natural world, GORILLAS IN THE MIST is the riveting account of Dian Fossey's thirteen years in a remote African rain forest with the greatest of the great apes. Fossey's extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. As only she could, Fossey combined her personal adventure story with groundbreaking scientific reporting in an unforgettable portrait of one of our closest primate relatives. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her murder, GORILLAS IN THE MIST remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Vivid account of everyday lives of gorilla families July 6, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book details the everyday lives of the a few mountain gorilla families as observed by Dian Fossey. She lived in the forest of Rwanda and Congo for more than a decade to study the gorillas.
Gorillas, one of humankind's closest relatives, are highly socialized animals. They live in groups that are formed and strengthened by kinship ties. Each individual has a role in the group and needs to constantly resolve conflicts within the group. Since each animal was given a name, the gorilla observations are like their stories. And indeed, their mating behavior, ways to enhance and defend their social status, and their heroism when defending the group against aggression, are much like that of a human society.
Dian Fossey pointed out the injustice done to the gorillas when their young were captured for display in a zoo. The capture of one baby gorilla often results in the death of several other gorillas (in many cases the whole family) as gorillas will fight to death to defend their young.
The book is technical with numerous references. It also entertaining and thought provoking.
Fascinating and Wonderful December 26, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Gorillas in the Mist is a fascinating and wonderful book about Dian Fossey and her studies of the mountain gorillas. Dian went to Africa in the 60's and set up camp there to study and trail the gorillas. In this book she recounts how she decided to study gorillas and how she got to follow her dream. The book follows the various gorilla groups she follows and the behaviors that she was able to observe.
B/c Dian was not a classically trained anthropologist a lot of her observations of the gorillas are compared to what human actions or feelings these may mirror. The book also is a highlights sort of book that summarizes her almost 2 decades studying these amazing animals. Although I found the book highly enjoyable and interesting I did get tried of it in the end, b/c the stories about the gorillas seemed repetitious.
Dian does touch up on the poaching and problems she had but I don't think in her novel she emphasized how dangerous the poachers were and how dangerous her actions to thwart them were. She was murdered and probably by these poachers.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Dian Fossey and gorillas. It is a fascinating look at gorillas in their natural environment and a woman whose quest it was to save them.
Murder in the Mist Solved? July 11, 2006
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
After more than 15 years, the mastermind behind the gruesome and infamous murder of renowned gorilla researcher and protector, Dr. Dian Fossey whose life was portrayed in the 1988 movie "Gorillas in the Mist," may finally be in custody in Belgium. Protais Zigiranyirazo, the former Governor of the Ruhengeri province in Rwanda, brother-in-law of the assassinated Rwandan president, and one of the country's most wanted criminals for his creation of "death squads," which killed 800,000 in 1994, was captured by Belgian police while trying to flee Kenya on June 9, 2001.
Dr. Fossey observed the gorillas for 18 years in the Ruhengeri province when she was brutally murdered in her hut on December 27, 1985. Known for her vigilant pursuit of poachers, Dr. Fossey had made many enemies including Zigiranyirazo, who, it was reported, she was about to announce publicly as being behind poaching and smuggling rings of endangered species and gold in and out of Rwanda. Soon after her murder, Rwandan officials arrested one of her trackers for the murder. He then "apparently" committed suicide while in prison, but diplomats in Kigali believe he was secretly hanged before he could talk. Several months later, Wayne McGuire, her American research assistant, was accused by the Government of her murder but escaped capture when the US embassy warned him, enabling him to leave the country.
For years the FBI was unable to approach its prime suspect, Zigiranyirazo, because of his political connections, but that all changed when he was arrested in Belgium for war crimes.
The saga of Dian Fossey's murder may soon be resolved, but her work for the gorillas she fought so hard to preserve still goes on. The following story, reprinted from the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, is of Beetsme, one of the original gorillas observed by Dr. Fossey over 25 years ago.
Beautiful and utterly captivating August 3, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Gorillas In The Mist" is more than just a scientific journal, it is a window into the world of nature itself. Dian Fossey paints a clear picture of her beloved mountain gorillas and brings forth her passion, through words, to save them from extinction. She went against the odds and changed the way we think about gorillas. She is a heroine in my eyes.
And to the reviewer who stated that Dian Fossey went against the laws of science by touching and becoming emotionally invovled with the gorillas, the only way that you're ever going to actually be able to really get to know something or someone is to become emotionally invovled. That's just common sense to figure that out. With that said, Gorillas In the Mist is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Utterly Fascinating October 31, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I picked this up on a whim. I had a gift card to a local book store and remembered finding the movie adaptation quite entertaining.
The result was a character study that blew me away. The subject matter of the mountain gorillas Fossey studied was only part of it. The person that came out in book was the true catch for me. Dian Fossey was as human as anyone else. A truly driven and flawed person who impacted science across the world.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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