Digit & Gorillas of Rowanda

by Ian Redmond

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Summary

Ian Redmond knew Digit the gorilla intimately, having worked with Dian Fossey among the forrested volcanoes on the border of Rwanda and Zaire. He also advised Sigourney Weaver when she played the tragic role of Dr Fossey in the award-winning film, "Gorillas in the Mist". It was he who found Digit after the young gorilla was killed by poachers. That killing led directly to a surge of conservation activity to save the species that Dian Fossey called "the greatest of the great apes". Ian Redmond gives a dramatic account of Digit's early years and of gorilla family life. He describes the forging of remarkable friendships between gorillas and humans based on mutual trust and respect. After Digit's death he would return from time to time to the forest and be accepted as honorary member of wild gorilla families. When civil war came to Rwanda he raised international support for his African friends who protected the gorillas until even they had to flee for their lives. Accompanied by a BBC television film crew, he returned to a land strewn with rotting corpses, where he endeavoured to find out if the gorillas had survived. Their joyful reunion stands in stark and moving contrast to the human degradation in Rwanda.

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