Chautauqua presenter: Gorilla researcher Dian Fossey did things her own way
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Dian Fossey had a passion for mountain gorillas that only grew as she studied them in the forests of Rwanda starting in 1966.
Though the story of her 18 years as a researcher and gorilla defender ending with her murder in 1985 was turned into the award-winning movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” it’s not a Cinderella tale.
Dianne Moran, one of the performers at this year’s Ohio Chautauqua presentations in downtown Warren, made it clear during a presentation Thursday at the Warren-Trumbull County Public Library that Fossey did things her own way.
Less than a year after she arrived in Africa, during a political uprising known as the Congo Crisis, she was escorted down from the mountain and held for two weeks.
Through bribery, she escaped and disagreed with advice from the U.S. Embassy that she return to the United States. Instead, she restarted her research in a different place.
One of her biggest battles was against poachers, who would kill gorillas for their heads and hands. Fossey alienated research assistants by using a gun and taking such forceful actions against poachers that the researchers complained to her funding partners.
“People get a little turned off by the gore,” Moran said. “When she caught poachers, she stripped them and beat their private areas with stinging nettles,” she said.
She would give the poachers reason to think she might hang them if they didn’t tell her where they were selling the gorilla body parts.
During her time in Rwanda, the gorilla population increased from around 250 to around 340, Moran said.
Moran’s portrayal and daytime presentations regarding Fossey are part of this year’s theme, “The Natural World.”
All performances and presentations are free.
The featured presentation tonight at 7:30, the last night, is Gene Worthington as Theodore Roosevelt.
Ohio Humanities established Ohio Chautauqua, which travels to four towns in Ohio each summer. It first came to Warren in 2004 and has returned five times.
Chautauqua builds on the 19th-century tradition established on the shores of New York’s Chautauqua Lake to combine living-history performances, music, education and audience participation.
Each day features adult programs and hands-on workshops for children. Evening performances include live music followed by a performance by an actor portraying a historic figure.
The remaining schedule is available at www.ohiohumanities.org/ohio-chautauqua/Warren-2017/.