A juvenile mountain gorilla playing on his father’s back
DEE ANN PEDERSON/NBP AWARDS 2014
AWF’s work with gorillas began approximately 50 years ago when we helped fund Dian Fossey’s now-famous study of mountain gorillas in the Virunga mountains. Her years of research, before her life was cut short, would shed light on many important aspects of gorilla life and behaviour – and thus inform the development of critical conservation efforts.
“I have become well acquainted with many of the gorillas, and they with me”, Fossey would write in National Geographic magazine. “They roam the mountain slopes and saddles in groups, and several groups now accept my presence almost as a member. I can approach to within a few feet of them…One has even played with the laces on my boots, though I have a feeling that he did not suspect that the boots were, in fact, connected with me.”