In September 1963, Fossey embarked on her first trip to Africa-which cost Fossey her entire life savings at the time, as well as a bank loan-visiting Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the Congo, among other areas. She soon became restless, longing to see other parts of the world and setting her sights on Africa. Living on a farm on the outskirts of Louisville, Fossey spent many off-hours happily tending to the livestock.
However, after enrolling in pre-veterinary studies at the University of California, Davis, she transferred to San Jose State College and changed her major to occupational therapy.Īfter graduating from San Jose in 1954, Fossey spent several months working as a hospital intern in California and then moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where she began serving as director of the Kosair Crippled Children's Hospital's occupational therapy department in 1955. Developing an affinity for animals at a young age, throughout her youth, Fossey was an avid horseback rider and an aspiring veterinarian.
Fossey told her story in the book Gorillas in the Mist (1983), which was later adapted for a film starring Sigourney Weaver.įossey was born on January 16, 1932, in San Francisco, California, and grew up with her mother and stepfather. She studied the endangered gorillas of the Rwandan mountain forest for two decades before her unsolved murder occurred in 1985, at Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda. While working as an occupational therapist, Dian Fossey became interested in primates during a trip to Africa in 1963.
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