National Park After Dark - Murders on the Mountain: Volcanoes National Park (Part 1)

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Today we are headed to the mountains of Rwanda for part one of our two-part series on the story of Dian Fossey. Her unorthodox and sometimes volatile “active conservation” methods undoubtedly saved the mountain gorillas, but ultimately may have led to her demise. Her love for the animals and passion for conservation changed the tides for the future of the species – never underestimate the change one person can enact.NPAD trip information and itineraries to South Africa and Madagascar !For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Apostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with code NPAD.Factor: Use our link and code NPAD130 to get $130 off across six boxes.Microdose: Use code NPAD to get free shipping and 30% off your first order.Reel: Use code NPAD for 30% off your first order and free shipping.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. I want everyone to take a moment, to close their eyes, take a deep breath, and pause to think of the answer to one simple question. What is your purpose?

Not so simple, is it? Finding the answer to this question for many is a lifelong journey, while for others, they seem to be born, knowing what their role is in this world right out of the gate. Some of us never find it at all. But I would argue that the vast majority of us spend years digging deep to find it, that true meaning behind what we do and why we do it, while a select view, the lucky few, stumble into it and strike gold. The beautiful thing about purpose is it looks different for everyone, creating art, providing for a family, giving back to the community, empowering others, living a life that stays true to yourself. The list goes on and on. Many of us find purpose and soul fulfillment in acts that benefit others, and others includes animals.

Giving a voice to the voiceless, speaking up and standing for those who cannot do so for themselves. But there are some who aim to silence those people and to cut them down, no matter what the cost. Welcome to National Park. after dark. Hi everybody. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. Welcome back. It's been a minute. Cassie's been here, there, and everywhere traveling the country. I know it doesn't seem that way because last week was Trail Tales, but I just did a, I just helped my cousin move from Texas to New Hampshire and we drove

the whole way. So I did a little mini cross-country trip. Just a quick few days. You powered through that. We did. And I wish that I could say I did a National Park trip because I drove by, let me tell you, I drove right by Hot Springs National Park, Mammoth Caves National Park, Cuyahoga National Park. Was your hand just like on the glass? Like your face face was just like crying. It was it was raining and rain was coming down. Rain coming down. Well, I'm sorry you didn't get to visit any of those that sucks. Anytime that you're so close yet so far, you know, it's terrible. I drove by the mammoth cave exit, and it was like, Mammoth Cave right off this exit. I like going by and I can see where they're digging some of the cave.

And I just like, a single tear rolls down your cheek. So close. Old Avril Levine is playing in the... There's no need for that detail. I don't understand. You're just such a, she's a nickelback Avrilavine person and it gets under my skin so bad. Everyone hates me now. Everyone's like, you like nickelback? Yes, I like nickel back. Well, okay. Oh, fun side story really quick. One time Cassie bullied me into trying to get the whole veterinary office to go against me and like wanting to go to a nickel back concert one time in New Hampshire, like really bullied me. I'm like, I'm not fucking going to

Nicolbach, okay? And it didn't work. I don't think anyone went. She didn't go. None of us went. Yeah. Yeah. It's very sad. But Nickelback played in New Hampshire once and we missed it. I don't think anyone's upset over that. But okay, anyway, we're getting sidetracked because we're not anywhere in the States today. And we're going somewhere that's on your bucket list, which I know doesn't really narrow it down much. I was going to say, and that is. And that's what? So we're going to be going to the continent of Africa, which we've been to before in some of our episodes, but we're going to a completely new country, and we are going to Rwanda. So are you ready? I'm so ready. So we're going to Volcano's National Park in Rwanda. Okay, I know nothing about this national park. And also,

because I titled it Volcanoes National Park, and I know that we've done Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii. Hawaii, right. So totally different one. This one is located in northwestern Rwanda. The area was first protected in 1925 and was actually the first national park in all of Africa. And it is named after its most prominent geological features, being the volcanoes. The park encompasses 160 square kilometers or about.

about 62 square miles and five of the eight dormant volcanoes in the Varunga mountain range. The tallest in the park being 4,507 meters, which is over 14,700 feet. So these are tall mountains. I'm pretty sure we've talked about Varunga before. I think I may be recommended also the Netflix documentary by the same name. I mean, this is like way back episode nine, I think, eight or nine. Yeah, that was the one where you did the women in Varunga National Park. Yep.

So we've talked a little bit about it. But this park actually borders Varunga National Park as well as Maninga Gorilla National Park. So this park has others surrounding it, which is really cool. The whole continent of Africa is cool because I feel like there's so much protected land there. There's so many national parks there. And they're huge. I wonder how many. national parks Africa has. That would be interesting. Are you Googling it? Yeah, I'm Googling it. Can I guess before

you tell me the answer? Yes. Okay. Um, 238. Close. Very close. Really? Yeah, there are over 225 national parks and popular game reserves on the African continent. That's close. That's really close. Oh, but then another thing says Africa has a total of 268 national parks. And I said 238. Yeah. Wow. Okay. You're very close.

It's either 225 or 268. I can't tell from my very quick Google search. Okay. So there's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah. So this part contains the volcanoes, montane forest, bamboo, and evergreen forests, swamps and grasslands.

It's rich in biodiversity and is home to thousands of species of plants, animals, and insects, many of which are endemic. the region. And we've talked about endemic species before. It means that they are found nowhere else other than in that place. Forest elephants, buffalo, double-colored sunbirds, spotted hyenas, bush pigs and golden monkeys can all be found here. And with all of its beauty and variety of flora and fauna, this park is famous for one animal in particular, one that has become almost its poster child. And that is the mountain gorilla. As of 2019, the global wild population of Mountain Gorillas was just over 1,000, and they are currently listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

And Volcano's National Park is home to nearly 50% of that entire number. So this park is vital to the mountain gorilla species as a whole, or subspecies, I should say. So while visitors to the park participate in activities like caving, touring the lakes, taking cultural tours, mountain biking, and hiking the volcanoes, by far the most, sought after activity is gorilla trekking. Thousands of people every single year come to the park for this reason alone. The most popular times for this activity is during the drier months, which is about mid-December to February or June through September.

And if you're interested in going, you have to purchase a permit and take a guided hike. You can't just walk in and do it yourself. Makes sense. And the price and details of the trek, the treks vary depending on which national park and or organization you're going to go through because like I said, there are several national parks like really clustered closely together. But in this particular national park, the permit costs about $1,500 U.S. dollars. And it allows you an hour of observation once the troop or group of mountain gorillas is located, which of course can take hours depending on how

close or far they are away. And during this hour, you can observe and photograph from a distance, of course the guerrillas grooming and playing and lounging and interacting and just doing their thing. That sounds like it would be such an experience. A dream come true for a lot of people. Yeah. Can we do that? Do you want to spend $1,500 and however much it takes to get there and all that? Because yes, sure. Yes, I do. The park pulls in millions of dollars every single year through park entry fees and these guerrilla. trekking fees, which in turn supports conservation efforts and the local communities. The park's success has created hundreds of jobs for locals, and every year, thousands of people have the chance to view one of the world's largest living primates.

Gorilla trucks are volcano national park's most popular activity, as this species is the most sought after in the park. But the opportunity to catch a glimpse of the mountain gorilla in their natural habitat is largely thanks to someone who dedicated their life to the guerrillas' plight. In fact, if it wasn't for this person's fierce protection, public outcries, and commitment to advocacy, there may not be wild mountain gorillas to see at all. Today, we will be talking about the extraordinary life and tragic death of one of the world's most renowned primatologists. Today, we are going to be telling the story of Diane Fosse. I'm very excited for this. Did you know who Diane Fossy was before this?

Yes, I know who she is, but I have a very general knowledge of her. I know essentially a very, if someone was like who's Diane Fosse, I would be able to be like, oh, she's a primatologist. She studied in Africa. She was a huge impact on conservation of gorillas. And that is the end of my knowledge. Okay. And that's kind of how my knowledge was as well going into this. Like if I saw her picture, I immediately would think of gorillas. Like I could put two and two together. But there is a lot to her. story that I did not know. And I think a lot of people's knowledge come from the film Girlas in the Mist, which we'll talk about later on too, but that's a famous movie with Sigourney Weaver who played Diane Fossey. It came out in the late 80s. So if you've seen Gorillas in the Mist, then you know what I'm talking about. I don't think I've seen Gorillas in the Mist. I did. Fun fact, Mighty Joe Young. Do you remember that movie? Very vaguely, yes. Mighty Joe Young was my favorite movie. a kid. I think I came out in like the late 1990s, so it was probably like eight or nine. Favorite movie. I made my dad. I literally made my dad bring me to the movie theater to see it five different times

because I loved it so much. That shows a lot of love that your dad has to sit through Buddy Joe Young five times in theaters. I think he started dropping me off at the end. He'd like drop me off with a friend and he'd be like outside. He'd run to Walmart or something. It's like, okay, yeah, I got to go. It was a different parents could do that. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want.

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Watch only on Prime. time. Okay, so Diane Fosse was born on January 16th, 1932 in San Francisco, California. She was an only child and her parents divorced when she was small. Her mother remarried when she was still fairly young, and it seems as if she had a pretty strained relationship with her stepfather and later her mother as well. She was largely estranged from her family later in life, but she did excel in academics in high school and was an accomplished equestrian. After high school, she enrolled in junior college where she began studying business,

but during a summer break at the age of 19, Diane changed her mind. She had spent the break working on a ranch in Montana and switched her major to pre-vete at the University of California, Davis. Her heart was with the animals, but found some of the chemistry and physics pre-wreck courses for veterinary medicine kind of challenging and ultimately switched her major two years into that program

to study occupational therapy instead. And I can just so resonate with this. I mean, it's not the same thing, but when I was in college, I graduated with my biology and environmental science degree. And there were two classes that differentiated me getting a BA versus a BS. And they were like organic chem one and two versus just like regular chemistry. Yeah. And I'm like, I cannot. I cannot. I'm not taking organic come. I just couldn't do it. So that I was like, whatever, screw it. I'll get a BA instead of a BS. Not that it matters now. But to me back then, I was like, I thought it was like the end of the world. But I just couldn't do the organic. No one told us that no one really cares about your degree that much. Yeah. At that time, it was like, yeah, the biggest deal in the world. I mean, not that they don't care,

but BA versus BS. It was the same thing where everyone's like, every employer you ever have will look at your transcripts. Right. Like, I don't think that's ever. happened to me one time. No. I guess it's probably different if you're going to Harvard or Yale and you're at like those Ivy League schools. Or I guess we didn't go to school to be doctors or anything too, but I was always told everyone's going to look at your transcript, blah, blah, blah, but it was always a joke at my college. It was like, D's get degrees. I don't, well, and here's the thing. They do. They do. And also, I don't think anyone checked our transcripts for this podcast. So I think we're doing okay. Yeah. After graduation in 1954, Diane worked at different hospitals in California with TB patients before making her way to Kentucky.

She took a job with disabled children and children suffering from polio in a couple different children's hospitals in the state. And like many of us, what we do isn't necessarily our passion. So while she really enjoyed her work, it wasn't her true, true calling. And the call for travel and animals and helping animals still kind of like linger. under the surface. I feel that. I feel that. Yep. And one of her friends actually returned home from a trip to Africa and was sharing these pictures and all the experiences that they had on that trip to Africa. And Diane immediately decided that she had to go for herself. So at this point, she's 31. It's the year 1963. And she decides to take out a loan from the bank to go to Africa and make this big dream trip come true.

Wow, so she's not even, she didn't have the money at all. She had to take a loan to get there. Yeah, like she had some money, of course, but such a big trip in what she had in mind and she wanted to go and do it right. It required a lot more than she had. So yeah, she took out a loan. I mean, that's dedication right there. If you're going to financially be tied to this idea. Yep. So it took her entire life savings and the help of that bank loan, but she arrived in Kenya in September of 1963. That first trip, including, included visits to Kenya and the countries which are now known as Tanzania, Congo, and Zimbabwe. She hired a guide and she traveled through Savo National Park, visited Manjara Lake, known for its giant flocks of flamingos, like those huge expansive flocks of flamingos that you see on All the Nature documentaries for Africa. Yes.

The Ungurangaroo crater. Sorry, everyone. I don't know how to say that. But it is the world's largest inactive, unbroken and unfilled volcanic. caldera. So it's like this huge gathering place for all different types of wildlife, like just a wildlife photographer's dream, you know, and she did. She did take her camera and documented this whole trip. And she also went to the famous archaeological site of Alduvai. What's that? It's like a big famous archaeological site where we're going to get into it a little bit. But it kind of

plays a big role into what happens with her pivotal moment in life and decisions. But that gorge site is an active excavation site, or it was at the time. And she also went to Mount McKino, the location of the first reliable study, field study, of the mountain gorilla. So she did a lot on this trip. And while the entire trip was very memorable, Diane had one notable pivotal moment that changed the course of her life. And that's when she was at that archaeological gorge site.

It's when she met Dr. Lewis Leakey, who was the world-renowned paleo-anthropo. And he was world-renowned for his study. And she knew it. And she met him there. And she actually, I didn't write in my notes, but she made a really big impression on him because she actually, like when she was talking to him, she tripped and fell and broke her ankle and threw up everywhere. That's a hell of a first impression. Yep. So they did speak. They spoke of his work as well as Jane Goodall's work with the chimpanzees in Tanzania, which at this point in time was only, in its third year. So Jane Goodall was just getting started as well. They spoke at length regarding the importance of long-term field studies with great apes. And shortly thereafter, she met up with a

couple who were working on a photographic documentary on Mountain Gorillas. And it was then peaking through the vegetation when she first laid eyes on her first wild mountain gorillas and fell in love. And just a little bit about Mountain Gorillas before we get going, since they're kind of like the center of the story. Mountain gorillas are a subspecies of the eastern gorilla. The subspecies was quote-unquote discovered, like first identified, I guess you could say, in 1902. They can be found in high mountain forest habitat, typically at elevations of between 8,000 and 13,000 feet. Because the temperatures here can drop below freezing, depending on the time of year, their fur is thicker than other great apes. And when standing on two feet, they can vary from around four

to six feet tall and weigh 135 to 485 pounds, which is around 61 to 219 kilograms. They have broad heads and feet and are extremely muscular. They are primarily herbivores and can eat as much as 40 pounds or 18 kigs of food every day, which consists mostly of bamboo, vines, and celery. Can you imagine? 40 pounds of celery. And no peanut butter? I can't. No peanut butter. No. No. And no raisins and no raisins for the peanut butter on the celery. Can you imagine?

No. How do they survive? And they're in their, and they're 400 pounds. Wow. Yeah, they're big. They are extremely social animals and they live in groups of between 2 and 40, led by a silverback, which is a dominant male who acts as kind of like the leader and protector of the group. Males born into a group will stay in their families until around 11 or so. and at that point, most of them will leave to travel alone or will link up with other males until they find females. They protect their families through intimidation behaviors and scare tactics. And physical altercations that result in serious injury or death are actually not the norm, but can happen. And I was surprised to learn about that because when I think of Great Apes or Chimps, I think of, like, chimps scare the hell out of me. Chimps are really aggressive and scary and they like rip each other apart. And I don't know, just for such a big primate, I just felt like that would be kind of something to be expected in their behavior. But a lot of it is just what I said, intimidation and kind of like bluff.

Like, you know, when bears bluff charge is kind of like that. They don't want to fight, but though they're ready. So they're nicknamed the gentle giants if that adds anything to their character. So while it's not, you know, like they could, they could kill you very easily or each other. Don't pet them. Yeah, I'm not saying, yeah, that they're like totally peace and love, but overwhelmingly aggression, especially interspecies aggression, is kind of rarer than I thought it would be. Yeah, that's interesting.

They are the second closest relatives to humans, beyond chimps and bonobos. And although they have sometimes got a bad rap in pop culture, like I said, they are described as gentle giants by researchers and from those who spend most the most time with them. So it's really no wonder why Diane fell in love with them. You know, there's something about gray apes, I think, that we can all relate to just they're so human looking and their behavior and mannerisms. It's hard not to be intrigued by them. After nearly two months in Africa, Diane returned back to Kentucky, where she continued her work at the Children's Hospital, but she also began another type of work. She started to publish articles and photos from her trip to Africa. And three years later, she jumped

on the opportunity to reconnect with Dr. Leakey when he was in Kentucky giving a lecture circuit. She showed him her published articles and he told her of his upcoming plans for a long-term field project to study the mountain gorillas. It was still in the funding stages, but Diane was eager to join. She used that time, roughly eight months or so while they were gathering funds, to finish paying off her first trip, teaching herself Swahili and studying up on mountain gorilla behavior. So she's just spent the last three and a half years or so paying off her first trip and now she's ready to get going again. In December of 1966, she said goodbye to her life in Kentucky and once again headed off for Africa. She set off for the Congo but first made a pit stop in Gombay

Stream National Park to meet Jane Goodall and to observe her methods of observation and research with the chimps. So cool. I know. I know. The queen herself. It's like, hold on. I'm just going to go, like, chill with Jane. I'm just going to go hang out with Jane Goodall. Yeah, I know. A dream come true. So she took all that knowledge that she learned from Jane and obviously her own research from home with her to the slopes of Mount McKino, where she began her study of the mountain gorilla. Alan Root, the man in the couple that she met originally in Africa, that couple that was doing the photo documentary that first took her to see the mountain gorillas. He was there and helped Diane obtain all the necessary permits for her to set up her camp and helped her recruit a couple of

locals who would stay and work with her. Alan gave her a crash course essentially in gorilla tracking and then left her to it. Her camp was very rustic. It had a single tent that served as her bedroom, office and bathroom. Potatoes were the main staple food and she would only make the hike down the mountain and then the two-hour drive to the nearest village once a month to resupply. She tracked and was successful on her own in the beginning, but soon began working with an experienced local guerrilla tracker who improved her success tenfold. And with his help, after over 11,000 hours of observation, Diane eventually identified and studied three different groups of guerrillas. She would observe them from a distance and then would mimic activities like

eating, scratching, and different vocalizations. She kept a daily detailed record of all of their behaviors, their day-to-day routines, and her encounters with them. And eventually, after all of these hours, she could easily identify them as individuals within these groups. At first, the biggest challenge was getting the gorillas to trust her presence, because up until this point, they had very limited exposure or interactions with people aside from poachers and cattle herders who used the park for grazing their livestock. And up until this point, Diane worked in the Congo, but after she was captured by rebel Congolese soldiers and held prisoner for a period of time, before her escape, she moved and continued her work into the Rwandan side of the Varunga Mountains

and into the heart of Volcano's National Park. Hold on. You just said that so casually. Because, yeah, before she was kidnapped by rebels and then escaped, she went on and studied girless. Like what? She continued her work just on the other side of the mountain range. Yeah, so I didn't want to get too into it because that's like a whole other story on its own. But yeah, she was captured by the Congolese rebel soldiers and she was being held as prisoner. And she actually somehow convinced them to drive her to another location like under this false guise of she needed to do something with her car or like something needed to be done. So they brought her to this location and she ended up kind of duping them and getting them arrested because she brought them to a place she knew that she could essentially turn them in.

So she basically tricked them. She said she had car trouble. No, I don't. It was something with her car. I don't know. Don't quote me because I was like, okay, this is a whole other rabbit hole. But yeah, she essentially tricked them and escaped. Wow.

Yeah, she's Balzy. Ballsy is a word to describe Diane Fossy. for that reason and many, many more that we'll get into. So now, long story short, she is in Volcanoes National Park, and that is where from this point on, her work will remain. Okay. So with the help of some locals who would end up being her closest friends and biggest supporters on September 24th of 1967, she pitched her first tense in the alpine meadow of Karasimbi.

She dubbed the camp the Karasoki Research Center and later wrote of it, quote, up two small tents in the wilderness of the Varungas, I had launched the beginning of what was to become an internationally renowned research station, eventually to be utilized by students and scientists from many countries. Through the next year, she hired a team of Rwandans to help run her camp. She overcame the hurdles of language barriers with both humans and the guerrillas. She worked hard to habituate the guerrillas to her presence and to slowly gain the trust of their shy and avoided nature. She would lay down and chew cherry celery, kind of like how they did on their backs while they ate.

She chose to knuckle walk versus standing upright when walking around them in their presence. She vocalized like them and overall just kind of piqued their natural curiosity. Like, what is this thing doing? You know, and they were intrigued and that she eventually won them over and won their trust. So was she interacting with them or was she just, nearby mimicking their behavior? Both eventually. Bob Campbell, a photographer for National Geographic, caught wind of her work and paid her a visit in the late 1960s. The PC published on her and her work launched her into the limelight

and garnered international attention. Suddenly, and I'm just going to say this, I'm not even going to try and pronounce this word more than once because it's very difficult for me. But I think it's important because it does come into play later on. But she was known to the locals as Nera Amakabili, and that translates into the woman who lives alone in the forest. And now this woman who lives alone in the forest is now known internationally for her work with the guerrillas. So kind of what Jane Goodall was doing with the chimpanzees, Diane Fosse was becoming with the gorillas. and she used that newfound fame for good. She harnessed all that attention,

and instead of soaking up the limelight on herself, which she could have easily done, she shifted the focus instead upon the plight of the gorilla. And just as a side note, she was a little uncomfortable with her lack of academic qualifications at this point, because remember, she worked as an occupational therapist with children.

Like she doesn't have a background in this at all. Right, right. So she was a renowned gorilla expert in her field of work, but she didn't have like any degrees to back it up. And she was kind of uncomfortable with that. So she enrolled in the Animal Behavior Department at Darwin College in Cambridge in 1970. During that time, she traveled between Cambridge and Africa for a period of four years while she earned her PhD. This helped bolster her reputation and really gave people little to no room to kind of question her when it came to her. expertise, which was very important. And she needed people to take her seriously because the

guerrillas were in trouble. Interestingly, this National Park, Volcanoes National Park, was originally established to protect mountain gorillas from poaching. That was the whole reason that it was first established. Because historically, it was a huge problem. And I do say historically, I mean, there is still a huge poaching problem, but it was certainly in full swing during the time that Diane was there. Poaching is one of the biggest threats against mountain gorillas, along with habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and climate change. What is it about gorillas that make them, I guess, valuable to poachers? So I will explain that a little bit. So starting with poaching, wildlife traffickers could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single animal.

And various physical anthropology departments throughout the world at that time were eager to obtain gorilla skeletons or skulls. So there was a demand for them. And tourists visiting the country would often purchase gorilla hands as keepsakes. So it's a souvenir. Yeah. Oh, that's sad and interesting. It's also interesting that part of the community that is studying these creatures are also creating a demand for them. Because I'm sure that that's not their intention, especially if they're studying them. I imagine that it's for other reasons, but it just came as like a second, a secondary need. It was supplying money, I think, to, I mean, but poaching's illegal. It was illegal. It is illegal. So this is all kind of going on in what I imagine, kind of like a black market type of deal.

But where there's a demand, no matter where it is, whether it's in a storefront perfectly legal, or the demand is in the shady back alleys, where there's a demand, people are going to provide. buy to supply. And I think that's what was going on. Well, it's like the plume feathers when we did the Everglades episode. Yeah. Yeah. That was like a good example of storefront, very legal. Everyone needed the feathers, so animals were dying. And now it's the similar. A similar, yeah, in a similar vein. And I will say that although there was poaching and there is poaching that that does directly target the guerrillas, a lot of the poaching activity is actually not targeting guerrillas at all. Some of Rwanda's indigenous groups have practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle forever, and only relatively

recently did some of their practices become illegal, such as setting snares. And the snares are intended for other animals such as anelope, but as with all snares, other animals are often caught as bycatch. So when gorillas would get a foot or a hand stuck in one as an adult, because they're huge, you know, a small snare might not kill them right away. But often, Sometimes what would happen is they would get like a hand or foot stuck in there and then they would struggle to get out and it would cause like a deep, deep gash and wound that oftentimes would get infected or cause like an amputation, a partial amputation. And if that infection obviously got serious enough, it could later lead to death. And some of the smaller gorillas, younger ones, babies, if they got caught, they could end up dying from the snare itself. So snares are a huge problem.

and poaching is a huge problem within the park. And Diane had a rather unorthodox way of dealing with and combating these issues. So she referred to her methods as active conservation. And active is definitely a appropriate descriptor for this. So in her mind, park employees were not equipped or proficient enough to enforce the law that would protect the forest and the animals. So she took things into her own hands. hands. So this, at this time, is kind of the start of Karasaki's own anti-poaching patrol and task force, which protected the guerrillas within the research area that she was operating within.

So the patrols that she put together trained and funded, for example, destroyed 987 traps over a period of several months in the year of 1979. And during that same exact time frame, the National Parks team of 24 destroyed zero traps and snares. How is that? Because she was just so vigour, like she was so honed in on this. Like this is like her life's purpose. Like she's like, these snares are endangering and already fragile population of mountain gorillas. And like this is our number one priority.

And she trained and funded. And she basically created her own militia to go out and do this and patrol the park. And she got to him before anyone else could, obviously, because the national park didn't get any of them. She was out there getting every single one. So she viewed all of these tactics as necessary. And although they may have been extreme, she felt that as though the circumstances were dire and warranted this exact reaction. Because along with destroying traps, this team, like this anti-poaching team also warded off poachers. They took continuous census counts of the animals and lobbied for the expansion of their habitat.

So they did a lot of things. So they're doing all these things. But don't just think that she's holding up save the gorilla signs because that was in no way good enough for Diane. She and her crew captured, beat, tortured, and publicly humiliated poachers, held cattle for ransom and burned hunting camps to the ground. So she's like a rogue. She's a warrior. She's a warrior. She's a warrior. She's not just an advocate.

She's in the war zone here. She's doing active conservation. That was her thing. So although she did work with the National Park, it wasn't always a great relationship. Because remember, she's operating out of the National Park and taking a lot of things into her own hands, which didn't always go over so well. I can imagine. She accused the National Park actually several times, different National Park employees, that they were actually aiding poachers by helping them low. and capture infant gorillas to be sold off to zoos, and she often challenged the Rwandan

government to uphold and enforce stricter poaching laws. So in short, while her methods were very effective, she pissed a lot of people off in the process of all this. I can imagine, especially if she's going after these big poachers who probably have big connections with dangerous people. Uh-huh. And then, of course, another thing that she's combating, is habitat loss. So for example, at 1969, nearly half of the forest in the National Park, which is obviously critical habitat for a very critically endangered animal, was cleared for pyrithrum, which is a flower that looks kind of similar to a daisy, but it was cultivated for using pyrethrin pesticides, which I've used for ticks, like back home in the northeast. I remember

spraying pyrithrin, like, for the tick issues out there. So that's kind of where I remember. seeing that. But, um, so these, these flowers were grown and cultivated and this product was largely exported. And the area surrounding the mountains of the park is also home to some of the most densely populated area, like rural communities in all of the continent. So there's all of this clearing going on. There's cattle grazers in the park. There's communities pushing up literally right to the edge of the forest of this critical habitat. There's poachers in the park. There's a lot going on here. and Diane's kind of just like trying to fight it from all angles. So the gorillas are in trouble and she's doing the best that she can with what she has to combat these issues.

And like I said, she had documented many different individuals from a lot of different groups of gorillas. But she had one favorite gorilla and his name was Digit. And Digit was about four or five years old when Diane first encountered him years prior. So in 1967. He was a member of group four. They nicknamed his family group group four. And he was given his name due to a damaged finger on his right hand. And at the time, he had no playmates in his age range in his group.

And he was kind of like a loner. So maybe this is why he was initially drawn to Diane. Whatever the reason, the feeling was definitely mutual. And they had a relationship that spanned over 10 years. They were really, I hate to say this, but they were really. really close friends. And she studied him and got to know him. And he was very comfortable with her for almost a decade. They had a really close kinship. He was very curious and playful and proved to be trusting of her even well into his adulthood, which sometimes is rare. You know, as infants,

they're curious and, you know, whatever. And as they get to be adults, they kind of shy away, but not Digit. So Digit was actually also part of a famous National Geographic photo shoot. So this made him kind of like the unofficial representative and somewhat poster child for the park's gorilla population. His face was all over things like posters, pamphlets, billboards, anything to do with the park or mountain gorillas in general. When you saw a picture during this time of a mountain gorilla, a lot of the times it was of digit. I've seen pictures of him and videos of him before. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But on December 31st of 1977, group four was ambushed by poachers. In an attempt to defend his family, Digit was stabbed multiple times, decapitated, and his hands and feet were severed.

Jesus. So his head was sold as a trophy and his hands were sold off to be used as as ash trays. And as you could imagine, Diane went into a deep, deep mourning. And in her grief, she harnessed the rage that ensued. She used the combination of her celebrity status as well as the brutal death of Digit to hammer the importance of guerrilla conservation home. She also established the Digit Fund to raise money to help fund her active conservation methods and other initiatives as well. And this fund actually was later renamed the Diane Fossie Gorilla Fund International or nicknamed now known as the Fossi Fund. So following Digit's death, there were many others.

and eventually all of Group 4 totally disbanded. She wrote in her journal, quote, Digit's killing was probably the saddest occurrence in all the years I had shared with Mountain Gorillas. Digit was my favorite among the guerrillas I studied, and I am not ashamed to call him my beloved Digit. So Diane's public outcries about these deaths

and the issue surrounding gorilla conservation was successful monetarily. It turns out that gorillas make really good fundraising animals, and most of the money coming in began being channeled through the African Wildlife Foundation as kind of a way to process a big portion of these donations and funnel into different initiatives.

And the foundation wanted to set up guerrilla tourism as a way of providing the country with income. They wanted to train and increase the number of park guides and to educate the public about the value of gorillas and their habitat. So they kind of wanted to do three, like a three-pronged approach to use all of this money.

However, Diane wanted to use the money in her own way. She wanted to use it all for her active conservation methods. She wasn't interested in having more people there. She just wanted to help the gorillas. In the way that she thought they would benefit most. Yeah, she didn't want tourism and guides and all that. She just wanted to be like, everyone out, leave them alone kind of thing. And in her, yeah, and in her mind, she's like, okay, well, I'm the reason that all of this

is even happening. You know, like, I should be able to use the money where I see it best fit. So this caused a lot of tension and big blowups between Diane and the foundation. And especially they came to blows when it came to guerrilla tourism. She was strongly opposed to it and even thought of tourists as idle rubberneckers. And she made her stance known verbally, of course, and in Diane fashion in action as well, as she did most things. So in 1980, she once actually fired a couple of shots right over the heads of a group of tourists that were coming up to Carasoki totally uninvited. So she's like, okay.

Who are you? Get out. Yeah. So she also had verbal altercations with the Rwanda agency that controls foreign visitors into the national parks, especially when she allowed David Natton. Burra up to the Research Center to film a sequence for his life on Earth series. So this agency gave his crew a really hard time while they were finished and kind of coming out of the park about not having the proper permits and documentations and things like that. And Diane was pissed because she felt like she could control who could come and go to her mountain.

So like there's a lot of, there's a lot of tension here. So she's doing a lot of work there, but she's also doesn't want to. to invite anyone else to help or be a part of it. I think it's more like she was upset that there are now these agencies like kind of gatekeeping and dictating who can come to see her when, how, who she can have up there, who she can't, because she's operating out of this national park. Like that's just, that is the root of all this. This isn't private property.

If it was private property and she owned this, it would be a completely different story. But it's just there's two sides to the coin. You know, like, yeah, she's operating out of this park and she should have to comply with different things that the park has in place. But at the same time, a lot of the park's success is coming from her work. So, you know, she's like, I have, like, I have a stake in this, you know. So anyways, that's kind of what she just felt like she wasn't having enough say in what was happening. Exactly. So tensions continued to and altercations with more and more people became more and more commonplace. When Diane discovered a letter by a coworker that had been drafted to be sent out to National

Geographic, which was one of her biggest sources of income at the time in backing for the research center, about how badly she was running the research center and how her presence had begun becoming dangerous, she was now absolutely convinced that there was an all-out conspiracy to get rid of her. And she became extremely suspicious of everyone at camp everyone that participated in the study. And she was sneaking up to different cabins at night of various researchers to kind of ease drop into their conversations. She was opening their mail before they could get it.

She was just looking for evidence that kind of supported this theory that she had, that there was a conspiracy against her. Like they were trying to overthrow her kind of thing? Essentially. And in 1980, just as all of this was kind of coming to a head, Cornell reached out to her and offered her a very, visiting associate professorship. So she took the offer and moved to New York and taught at Cornell for three years. And she used this time away from the research center to focus on writing her book,

Gorillas in the Mist, a memoir about her years in the rainforest with the mountain gorillas and how important the need for conservation efforts were. So working Karasaki continued in her absence, and she returned in 1983, but not for long. Several weeks before her 54th birthday, on December 26, 1985, Diane was found murdered in her cabin. Gaining her fair share of enemies during her crusade to save the guerrillas, the question of who to blame for her death goes way deeper than you may think. And that is where I am going to leave everyone for part one of Diane Fosse's story.

No. Oh my. That is a cliffhanger to leave us on. She was found murdered. I can't even ask you questions. Can I ask you questions? How was she murdered? I mean, you can ask me questions. But without getting too far into it, because that's what part two is for. She was found murdered in her cabin. She had someone had killed her with a machete. It was very brutal. Yeah. Wow. Holy shit. What a cliffhanger you are leaving us on. How does it feel? How does it feel? How does it feel? This is payback for my two part tours. Two part two. Two part tours. Yeah. Two part tours. Say that three times fast.

Well, it gets insane. I was originally going to do it into one big episode, but there's just too much going on here. There's a lot more to come. And in part two, which is going to come on out, it's going to come on out on Thursday. So it's just a couple of days away. We're not going to make you wait a full week. And we'll be taking a bigger, deeper, deeper dive into why Diane made the enemies that she did. Break down her case, how it was handled.

There's a lot going on with that. And then, of course, we'll talk about the Mountain Gorillus today and what's going on with them and what's going on with the National Park. Oh, well, I can't wait. This sounds like it's going to be very, very interesting. Yeah, Diane is a very interesting person because she's celebrated and she's also looked upon And, you know, especially looking back on like her story and the way that she had, she had a lot of different volatile relationships. She didn't always treat people with dignity and respect.

And so there's just like a lot of layers into her story and ultimately leading up to her death and a lot of theories because of some of those reasons. But again, I'm going to zip my lip. It's going to be for part two. Well, I can't wait to hear it because you really left us on a cliffhanger today. And is it Thursday yet? I'm ready. Well, we do have one more very exciting thing to discuss before we round this out. Yes, we do. Yes, yes, yes, yes, we do. We're leaving you on a cliffhanger, so you might be mad at that.

But we have a gift to give in exchange. We do. And it's really, really exciting. And I've been waiting to tell everyone for so long. Okay, just tell them. Okay. So it is my personal top number one. bucket list thing to do is to go to Africa. Specifically, I would love to go to South Africa and some other places. So Danielle and I are launching two more trips that are going to be happening in October of 2003 and we are going to South Africa and we're taking everyone to Madagascar as well. I can't believe it. I got goosebumps. I have goosebumps. I'm smiling ear to ear. Like when we found out that we had the opportunity to create a trip and to bring you guys along with us to locations that are just dream dream. I feel like we say this all for every trip because they are.

They are all dream bucket list destinations. But certainly these two in particular have been like just a dream come true for us. And we can't wait to share them with you. So like Cassie said, the trips aren't going to be until the end of 2023 in October and November of 20, But they will go on sale on August 11th at noon Eastern Standard Time and 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. Which is so, so exciting. We have this super exciting itinerary that's planned for both of them. And part of why we've been planning these trips that are so far away and so crazy is because these are trips that are so hard to book on your own. I would never, I would never be able. I mean, I don't want to say I would never be able to, but it would. It's definitely a limiting factor when it comes to planning my own trips. It's intimidating.

Yeah, it is. It's intimidating to figure out how am I going to get there? Where am I going to go? What am I going to do? Is it safe? You know, it's just like, especially when you're going to different countries, there's just so many questions. So part of why we've been putting together these itineraries in all these different

countries is because we want to make it accessible to people and make it something that's exciting. So for South Africa, we have some pretty. crazy stuff that we're doing. I mean, we're going to be kayaking. We're going to be doing safaris. We're going to see the big five. We're going to be going to a national park. I mean, South Africa is going to be so amazing. I'm really, really excited. Well, there's, okay, so paddling with the penguins, obviously the two different safari drives. There's going to be a couple hikes involved, a wine tasting because balance. Wine. Yeah.

Snorkeling. We're going to be going to Cape Town. And of course, the detailed itineraries, we will link so you can get a good breakdown of them. These are just a couple of highlights. I mean, the whole thing is a highlight, but these are just some exciting things. Yeah, so that's South Africa. And for Madagascar, we were like, we're already there. We might as well go to Madagascar, too. Like, we're already in that part of the world. So Madagascar is so different and so exciting. Wildly different. And the biggest thing with Madagascar is the opportunity to see wild lemurs. So we're going to be visiting a national park in Madagascar as well. We're going to be visiting a lot of different local communities and learning about the culture there.

We're going to take guided tours. It's just going to be so amazing and just a completely different part of the worlds that I certainly never thought I would have the opportunity to see. And we are so happy that we can extend the opportunity to you as well. So, We're going to put it on our link tree, right? Cassie. Yeah, it'll be on our link in our Instagram. We'll have the itinerary links there. We're also going to send out an email to everyone subscribed to our email list.

We'll send out an email there. We've already launched this trip on our social media to give people a little bit of a heads up before it does go on sale. So you can go to the trip link. You can add your email if you want an email notification as soon as it goes live. these trips do tend to sell out really fast. So our advice is if you are super interested in these because they're so exciting would be to just go onto the trip link page around 12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time 9 a.m. Pacific Standard Time

and just be ready to book it. And check out the itinerary because check out, make sure that this is doable for your capabilities for hiking and things like that. I think for these two tours, they're pretty minimal in hiking. I think that it's more of like walking. Yeah, you can't really hike in places like South Africa, in the places we're going at least. So it's definitely less hiking intensive than some of our other trips that we've done. But still check out the itineraries.

Make sure that there's something that you're comfortable with. And yeah, we're so, so excited. This is going to be crazy. Yeah, so we're not going to Rwanda like Diane Fosse, but we're going to Africa. And it's just going to be amazing. So if you want the opportunity to join, go check out the itineraries. And yeah, we'll post those as soon as we have them. So by the time that this airs, they should already be up.

I think that's where we're going to leave everyone with this story for now. But we'll pick it up in a couple days on Thursday for part two. And in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Okay, bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com.

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