Gaining the Trust of the Gorillas | Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

KELLY STEWART: Dian Fossey was definitely a pioneer. I do not think that word has been overused. Before that, nobody had done a long-term study of gorillas. Nobody had studied them month after month and year after year.

IAN REDMOND: She wanted to be the scientist who began the first long-term field study of gorilla behavior in their society, and to take that as far as it would go.

NARRATOR: (READING FOSSEY'S JOURNAL) I've been following one guerrilla group round all month, and I'm now able to get within 30 to 60 feet of them. To be perfectly frank, I think they're quite confused as to my species.

IAN REDMOND: In order to study them and learn about the behavior, Dian had to get them used to her. And that process is called habituation, winning the trust. The habituation process is not nice, because you're upsetting this family of gorillas day after day after day. Dian's methods played on the gorillas' curiosity. So she would behave in ways that would elicit a curious rather than anger response. Like when she was climbing a tree to get a better look, she would deliberately ham it up. And she found that that got their attention.

NARRATOR: (READING FOSSEY'S JOURNAL) I've gotten them accustomed to me by aping them, and they are fascinated by my facial grimaces and other actions that I wouldn't be caught dead doing in front of anyone. I feel like a complete fool, but this technique seems to be working.

See How NASA Helped An Artist Create Stunning Drawings of Glaciers | Short Film Showcase

Models of citizenship | Citizenship | High school civics | Khan Academy

View All

The Lost Colony of Roanoke - background and first attempts

Hello Kim. Hey David! So let’s talk about the lost colony at Roanoke. This is something I’ve been learning a lot about lately, and I think it’s really interesting. You know, we often think about this just in terms of the spookiness of there’s this colony…

Approximating solutions with graphing calculator

We’re told this is the graph of ( y ) is equal to ( \frac{3}{2} ) to the ( x ) and that’s it right over there. Use the graph to find an approximate solution to ( \frac{3}{2} ) to the ( x ) is equal to ( 5 ). So pause this video and try to do this on your …

MAKE Harry & Hermione KISS .. and other fun free games :)

6 days ago, Little Big Planet 4556 asked for more online scary flash games. So because Vsauce delivers, I’m going to do that right now, along with some funny and just straight up creative games. They’re all free, and they’re all online, and links to them …

Indefinite Pronouns | The parts of speech | Grammar | Khan Academy

Hey grammarians! Today, I want to talk about the idea of the indefinite pronoun, which looks kind of complicated, but really just does what it says on the tin. An indefinite pronoun is just that: it’s indefinite, undefined, uncertain. These are pronouns t…

The Cleverest Productivity Hack | Productivity Hacks for Students

This is a good idea. So, I used to buy this gum from the grocery store, and it was just like regular Wrigley’s Extra or whatever. But it was my study gum, so I only studied it when I chewed it, and I only chewed it when I was about to study. It was like m…

China's Economic Crisis Is About To Get MUCH Worse (Housing Collapse Explained)

Across the past few months, if you’ve seen a news story about China’s economy, you’ve probably seen pictures like this: pictures of social unrest, people protesting outside of banks after their bank accounts were frozen, or outside the headquarters of maj…

Gaining the Trust of the Gorillas | Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist

More Articles