Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey: book review

Gorillas in the Mist (1983) is Dian Fossey’s memoir of 13 years living with endangered mountain gorillas in the rainforests of the volcanic Virunga Mountains, from 1967 to 1980.

Fossey observed and studied four mountain gorilla families, of 51 individuals, in the Virunga Mountains, a range stretching into three African countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. She established the Karisoke Research Centre in Rwanda in 1967 with two small tents in the remote wilderness, that eventually became an internationally renowned research station.

Through births and deaths, Fossey witnessed the growth and development of the mountain gorillas, from infancy to adulthood. Through challenges, such as poachers, the natural demise of gorilla groups, staffing, student census workers and researchers, uninvited visitors, supply shortages, cabin fires, weather, funding, and changing governments, Fossey sits a lonely, but dedicated, individual on a deeply personal quest for understanding.

Beautifully-written, well-documented in meticulous detail, it is a combination of her personal story and her groundbreaking primate research in one of the longest-running field studies of gorillas in the world.

There is, however, a looseness with chronology, a preponderance of her views on how field studies should be conducted, and only a vague understanding of the controversy and events that led to her murder in 1985. It is refreshing when she writes of human contact, through visiting researchers. She skirts many personal issues, but, as far as the gorillas are concerned, they are the star characters in this day-to-day view of their social life, curiosity, tenderness, and brutality.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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