Image: Author's Website
Happy Friday! Phew! This was a long one what with horrible sleeps and weird weather. I hope the weekend weather allows for lots of walks and gardening for me.
Fact Friday features Unforgotten: the Wild Life of Dian Fossey and Her Relentless Quest to Save the Mountain Gorillas by Anita Silvey. This biography of the third and final member of the "Trimates," three female recruits of Louis Leakey, a famous paleoanthropologist who mentored them in their respective research fields - Jane Goodall studied chimpanzees, Biruté Mary Galdikas studied orangutans in Borneo and Dian Fossey studied gorillas.
Dian Fossey was not a trained scientist. She was a physical therapist who worked in Louisville, Kentucky who had a lifelong dream to visit Africa. So she did. She spent all of her savings and borrowed money to trek to Africa for seven weeks. There, she fell in love with the Mountain Gorillas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She also met Louis Leakey, who was impressed by her passion and intelligence. He raised money for her to return to DRC to set up camp and study the elusive primates. She spent the next 18 years doing so, first in DRC and then in neighboring Rwanda. She was fiercely protective of the gorillas and often clashed with poachers who set traps for the creatures.
Informative and well-organized, succinct text pair with amazing photographs and maps! The back matter is just terrific starting with field notes, mini-bios of eight of Fossey's gorillas, a timeline, a key to plants, books, articles, websites and film suggestions for further research, source notes, an endnote and an author's note add interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment