Primate expert Dian Fossey sits with mountain gorillas in the Virunga mountains in Rwanda in 1982.
Although pioneering zoologist Dian Fossey worked with many gorillas during her career, she had a clear favorite: Digit. He gravitated toward her and the pair developed a close relationship. In 1977, he was found in the forest, decapitated by poachers. Digit’s death gained national attention after Walter Cronkite announced the brutal murder on CBS Evening News. Soon, a new surge of interest in the topic of gorilla poaching and conservation swept the U.S., and shortly thereafter, Fossey founded the Digit Fund (now called the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International) to protect the endangered animals.