11/13/2023 0 Comments Dian fossey gorilla fund internship![]() They’re continuing to collect those data that started back with Fossey 50 years ago. They are the ones out on the ground every day. Our organization has 160 staff in Africa-115 in Rwanda and 45 in the Congo. What kind of work happens now at Karisoke? And people, even though they aren’t poaching gorillas, still depend on the forest-they go and hunt other animals, like antelope, and gorillas can get caught in the snares as a result. They’re restricted to a small area, so there’s risk of disease transmission because they’re very susceptible to human diseases. They live in a region that has some of the highest population densities in Africa. The biggest risk now is that they have a very small habitat. Luckily those are not problems for the mountain gorillas anymore-direct poaching has pretty much stopped. People thought it was cool to have a gorilla hand as an ashtray or a gorilla head on their mantelpiece. One of the major threats for mountain gorillas in Dian Fossey’s time was poaching, primarily for souvenirs. ![]() So it puts in perspective how small and fragile this population is.Īre the threats mountain gorillas face now the same as those they encountered 50 years ago? We hear a lot about elephants-for good reason, because they’re being decimated through poaching-but there are still elephants left, and we’re talking about fewer than 900 mountain gorillas. They’re one of the most endangered mammals on the planet. There’s another small population of 400 individuals, so that means that on the entire planet, there are fewer than 900 mountain gorillas remaining. It’s a great conservation success story, but the population is still incredibly fragile. In the region where Dian worked, they’ve gone from 240 individuals to 480. But instead their population has doubled. It was thought at the time that mountain gorillas might go extinct by the year 2000. What is the status of Fossey's mountain gorillas?įifty years ago this month Dian Fossey established Karisoke. Scientific American spoke with Stoinski, who is the president, CEO and chief scientific officer of the Gorilla Fund, about the status of Fossey’s mountain gorillas and Grauer’s gorillas, the threats facing both animals and how conservation efforts can help save them from extinction. If nothing is done, Grauer’s gorillas could go extinct within the next decade, says primatologist Tara Stoinski. This subspecies lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is quickly vanishing from the forest. Today the work at Karisoke still focuses on the mountain gorilla-but now its researchers have also turned their attention to its close cousin, the Grauer’s gorilla. Tara Stoinski is a leading primatologist and serves as President and CEO/Chief Scientific Officer at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, based at Zoo Atlanta. Fifty years later Karisoke is now the longest-running gorilla research program, operated by the nonprofit Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. Although she was murdered in 1985 under still-mysterious circumstances, her legacy persists. Fossey’s zealous work captivated the world, and she is widely credited with saving mountain gorillas from extinction. She hiked into the Virunga Mountains, pitched two tents and established the Karisoke Research Center. Fifty years ago, on September 24, 1967, American Dian Fossey flew to Rwanda to study the country’s gravely threatened mountain gorillas.
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