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Our Wild World · July 7 · 41 min

Part 2: Gorillas in Our Midst

This special three part miniseries from Our Wild World explores both lowland and mountain gorillas can be listened to in any order. Part 2 begins with the life and legacy of the American primatologist Dian Fossey – no one loved gorillas more. By the time Dian Fossey began her study of mountain gorillas in 1966, the species was well on the way to extinction due to poaching and habitat loss. Dian Fossey’s groundbreaking research of mountain gorillas and her battles to save them will be featured. Fossey’s active conservationism gained her much acclaim as well as some fierce enemies. Fossey was murdered the day after Christmas on December 26th, 1985. This episode becomes the only true crime podcast in the series as we investigate Fossey's still unsolved murder. I’ll share with viewers my conversation with Fossey’s lover, National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell, and my correspondence with her biographer, famed Canadian conservationist and author Farley Mowat, as well as American diplomats stationed in Kigali, Rwanda in the 1990s as to who may have killed her. My conversations with Bob Campbell and Farley Mowat have never appeared anywhere else. Part 2 also includes the fascinating story of Koko the gorilla, and the research Francine Patterson did teaching Koko American Sign Language and proving the intelligence of these amazing sentient beings. Part 1 introduced this misunderstood species. It took listeners back to Rwanda and Zaire in 1991. In Part 1 I told the harrowing story of how I almost became one of the first victims of the Rwandan genocide. Unknowingly, I took pictures of the Presidential Palace in Kigali, Rwanda. I was accused of being the wrong kind of guerrilla, a rebel from Uganda, and detained by soldiers. Then, I shared my trek to see the lowland gorillas at Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Congo (what was then Zaire). While the conservation of mountain gorillas has been a true success story, the lowland gorillas sadly are disappearing fast. They have the bad luck of being located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has always been a very unstable, war-torn region. Part 1 also featured my meeting with legendary German conservationist Conrad Aveling deep in the bush of the Congo. Part 3 will feature more research on the fascinating lives of mountain gorillas, and I’ll share our trek to see the descendants of the mountain gorillas Fossey studied at Volcanoes National Park in 2017. Part 3 then turns to Uganda's Impenetrable Forest and tracking gorillas there. Check out our companion Facebook and Instagram sites for pictures my wife and I have taken in the bush.

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This special three part miniseries from Our Wild World explores both lowland and mountain gorillas can be listened to in any order.  Part 2 begins with the life and legacy of the American primatologist Dian Fossey – no one loved gorillas more.  By the time Dian Fossey began her study of mountain gorillas in 1966, the species was well on the way to extinction due to poaching and habitat loss.  Dian Fossey’s groundbreaking research of mountain gorillas and her battles to save them will be featured.  Fossey’s active conservationism gained her much acclaim as well as some fierce enemies.   Fossey was murdered the day after Christmas on December 26th, 1985.  This episode becomes the only true crime podcast in the series as we investigate Fossey's still unsolved murder.  I’ll share with viewers my conversation with Fossey’s lover, National Geographic photographer Bob Campbell, and my correspondence with her biographer, famed Canadian conservationist and author Farley Mowat, as well as American diplomats stationed in Kigali, Rwanda in the 1990s as to who may have killed her.  My conversations with Bob Campbell and Farley Mowat have never appeared anywhere else.  Part 2 also includes the fascinating story of Koko the gorilla, and the research Francine Patterson did teaching Koko American Sign Language and proving the intelligence of these amazing sentient beings.  Part 1 introduced this misunderstood species.  It took listeners back to Rwanda and Zaire in 1991.  In Part 1 I told the harrowing story of how I almost became one of the first victims of the Rwandan genocide. Unknowingly, I took pictures of the Presidential Palace in Kigali, Rwanda.  I was accused of being the wrong kind of guerrilla, a rebel from Uganda, and detained by soldiers.  Then, I shared my trek to see the lowland gorillas at Kahuzi Biega National Park in the Congo (what was then Zaire).  While the conservation of mountain gorillas has been a true success story, the lowland gorillas sadly are disappearing fast.  They have the bad luck of being located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has always been a very unstable, war-torn region.  Part 1 also featured my meeting with legendary German conservationist Conrad Aveling deep in the bush of the Congo.   Part 3 will feature more research on the fascinating lives of mountain gorillas, and I’ll share our trek to see the descendants of the mountain gorillas Fossey studied at Volcanoes National Park in 2017.  Part 3 then turns to Uganda's Impenetrable Forest and tracking gorillas there.  Check out our companion Facebook and Instagram sites for pictures my wife and I have taken in the bush.

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