Dian Fossey (San Francisco, 1932 – Karisoke Research Center Rwanda, 1985) was an American zoologist who dedicated her life, and ended up paying with it, to the conservation of mountain gorillas in Rwanda and the Congo. In the 80s, these animals were facing extinction because of poachers. In 1983, she published Gorillas in the Mist, a book that contained her observations and her interaction with the gorillas through her years of fieldwork. She was found in her cabin, hacked to death, apparently at the hands of the poachers with the support of the Rwandan authorities.