Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by Dian Fossey

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American scientist Dian Fossey.

Last updated on September 17, 2024.

Dian Fossey was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of Rwanda, initially encouraged to work there by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey. Gorillas in the Mist, a book published two years before her death, is Fossey's account of her scientific study of the gorillas at Karisoke Research Center and prior career. It was adapted into a 1988 film of the same name.

American - Scientist | January 16, 1932 - December 26, 1985

Source: Wikipedia

I cannot concur with those who advocate saving gorillas from extinction by killing and capturing more free-living individuals only to exhibit them in confinement.

Dian Fossey

The mountain gorilla faces grave danger of extinction - primarily because of the encroachments of native man upon its habitat - and neglect by civilized man, who does not conscientiously protect even the limited areas now allotted for the gorilla's survival.

Dian Fossey

The Parc des Volcans in Rwanda, where I conduct most of my studies, is heavily infested with poachers and herdsmen, whose cattle graze right through my camp area. Park boundaries have no meaning to these tribesmen.

Dian Fossey

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

Dian Fossey

I feel more comfortable with gorillas than people. I can anticipate what a gorilla's going to do, and they're purely motivated.

Dian Fossey

I have made my home among the mountain gorillas.

Dian Fossey

There was no way that I could explain to dogs, friends, or parents my compelling need to return to Africa to launch a long-term study of the gorillas.

Dian Fossey

Gorillas are the largest of the great apes. A mature male may be six feet tall and weigh 400 pounds or more; his enormous arms can span eight feet.

Dian Fossey

It is true that there comes a time when I do literally dream about McDonald's. I dream of supermarkets and drug stores, potato chips and the Sunday morning paper.

Dian Fossey

Not only was it necessary to get the gorillas accustomed to the bluejeaned creature who had become a part of their daily lives, it was also very necessary for me to know and recognize the particular animals of each group as the amazing individuals they were.

Dian Fossey

Play seems to be one of the first activities inhibited by the presence of an observer until a group becomes well habituated. For this reason, I consider it more common than previously thought.

Dian Fossey

Among all researchers who have worked in the African field, I consider myself one of the most fortunate because of the privilege of having been able to study the mountain gorilla.

Dian Fossey

Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'

Dian Fossey

It was their individuality combined with the shyness of their behavior that remained the most captivating impression of this first encounter with the greatest of the great apes.

Dian Fossey

One of the basic steps in saving a threatened species is to learn more about it: its diet, its mating and reproductive processes, its range patterns, its social behavior.

Dian Fossey

If mountain gorillas are to survive and propagate, far more active conservation measures urgently need to be undertaken. The question remains, is it already too late?

Dian Fossey

Any observer is an intruder in the domain of a wild animal and must remember that the rights of that animal supersede human interests. An observer must also keep in mind that an animal's memories of one day's contact might well be reflected in the following day's behavior.

Dian Fossey

Conservation of any endangered species must begin with stringent efforts to protect its natural habitat by the enforcement of rigid legislation against human encroachment into parks and other game sanctuaries.

Dian Fossey

For captive gorillas, trees should be available to climb and material such as straw, branches, or bamboo supplied for nest building.

Dian Fossey

When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.

Dian Fossey

I had a wonderful contact, especially with Uncle Bert who was an angel and led the whole group over to my side of a steep ravine I could not cross to get over to them.

Dian Fossey

The man who kills the animals today is the man who kills the people who get in his way tomorrow.

Dian Fossey

My study of the wild gorilla is not yet finished, and even when it is complete, it will contribute only a small part toward man's understanding of his closest animal relatives, the great apes. But one conclusion is already clear: The gorilla is one of the most maligned animals in the world.

Dian Fossey

I have no friends.

Dian Fossey

Those bearing the heavy responsibility of caring for captive gorillas should be encouraged to exchange so-called nonbreeders between populations, an inherent process among free-living gorillas and one that avoids inbreeding and also stimulates productivity.

Dian Fossey

The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

Dian Fossey

There are times when one cannot accept facts for fear of shattering one's being. As I listened to Ian's news, all of Digit's life, since my first meeting with him as a playful little ball of black fluff ten years earlier, passed through my mind. From that moment on, I came to live within an insulated part of myself.

Dian Fossey

I had this great urge... I had it the day I was born. Some may call it destiny. My parents and friends called it dismaying.

Dian Fossey

None of the three great apes is considered ancestral to modern man, Homo sapiens, but they remain the only other type of extant primate with which human beings share such close physical characteristics. From them we may learn much concerning the behavior of our earliest primate prototypes, because behavior, unlike bones, teeth, or tools, does not fossilize.

Dian Fossey

I had a wonderful contact, especially with Uncle Bert who was an angel and led the whole group over to my side of a steep ravine I could not cross to get over to them

Dian Fossey

Active conservation [of gorillas] involves simply going out into the forest, on foot, day after day after day, attempting to capture poachers, killing-regretfully-poacher dogs, which spread rabies within the park, and cutting down traps.

Dian Fossey

The extraordinary gentleness of the adult male with his young dispels all the King Kong mythology.

Dian Fossey

I have no friends. The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.

Dian Fossey

Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'

Dian Fossey

I shall never forget my first encounter with gorillas. Sound preceded sight. Odor preceded sound in the form of an overwhelming, musky-barnyard, humanlike scent. The air was suddenly rent by a high-pitched series of screams followed by the rhythmic rondo of sharp pok-pok chestbeats from a great silverbacked male obscured behind what seemed an impenetrable wall of vegetation.

Dian Fossey

[About gorillas] You take these fine, regal animals. How many (human) fathers have the same sense of paternity? How many human mothers are more caring? The family structure is unbelievably strong.

Dian Fossey

[My] excursions provided a unique opportunity for observing [the gorillas' behavior] in their natural habitat... Then, all too soon, the infants were demanded for their trip to the zoo. ... [H]appily the babies did not know they would never see their mountain home again

Dian Fossey

Top 37 Quotes & Sayings by Dian Fossey

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