Dian's enduring legacy

THE number of mountain gorillas in the world is increasing, thanks to the extraordinary legacy of conservationist Dian Fossey who was killed 40 years ago today.

- BY ANDY LINES

Dian became known globally after she was played by Sigourney Weaver in the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist.

It told of her incredible work saving mountain gorillas and how she was hacked to death with a machete in Rwanda on Boxing Day 1985.

And now the charity set up in her name has revealed the work that Dian started is reaping huge benefits.

Felix Ndagijimana, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's country director in Rwanda, said: "She would also be amazed to see that the mountain gorilla is the only nonhuman great ape population in the world whose numbers in the wild are increasing.

"I think that Dian Fossey would be surprised to see how the research centre she started in 1967 is now a world-famous research institution, with more than 200 Rwandan staff."

It is believed there are now more than 1,000 mountain gorillas compared with 400 when 53-year-old Dian was murdered in her cabin at the Karisoke Research Centre.

She had spent 18 years studying gorillas there.