Fossey Gorilla Fund and Brenau Joining Forces

(From gorillafund.org)

GAINESVILLE – The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International and Brenau University will celebrate the “Year of the Gorilla” this fall with a series of lectures, seminars and other events, all geared toward understanding the work of preserving endangered species and related critical conservation issues.

The events begin Monday at 4 p.m. with the opening of a month-long exhibit of items, many of them never before on public display, that were in the Rwandan cottage of Dr. Fossey, the zoologist, when she was murdered the day after Christmas in 1985. Running through Oct. 20, the library exhibit will be open from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday through Friday. Groups may make an appointment for other times by calling 770-534-6213. The Sept. 21 opening also will feature a performance by a group playing African drums.

The open-to-the-public and students-only events are part of the Kay and Doug Ivester Endowed Program Series at Brenau.

“This is a unique opportunity for university students to interact with the work of active field scientists in conservation,” says Clare Richardson, president and CEO of the Fossey Fund. “It is a wonderful way to introduce important conservation topics and how they are applied in real-world settings.”

Dr. Ed Schrader, president of Brenau University, said the joint initiative helps Brenau fulfill its mission not only by providing students insights to global issues but also by providing programs for broader education of the entire community.

“This program series brings to life our commitment to a world view which includes responsible stewardship of our planet and all the life it sustains,” said Schrader. “This provides our students, faculty and neighbors in the community an up-close experience with scholars and practitioners working passionately to preserve the gorilla habitats in central and western Africa.”

The public portion of the series begins Sept. 21 with the opening of the library exhibit of Fossey’s personal items. It will feature a brief performance on African drums, one of which was among Fossey’s possessions, by the Alchemy Drum & Dance Community of Gainesville. Bethany Havas, a research and instruction assistant at the library, is a member of that organization and will perform with the group.

On Friday, Sept. 25, Dr. Tara Stoinski, the Pat and Forest McGrath Chair of Conservation and Research at the Fossey Fund, keynotes the university’s first conference on global and local sustainability issues from 2:30 -7 p.m. at Brenau’s east campus in Gainesville at 1001 Chestnut St. The topic of her talk will be “Gorillas at the Crossroads: How Science, Economics and Society Interface to Save a Species.”

At 7 p.m. on Oct. 13 the university will host in its historic Pearce Auditorium “Science Symposium: A Conversation from the Field” – a public presentation featuring a panel of Fossey Fund staff, including Stoinski; Dr. Katie Fawcett, director of the Fund’s Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda; Felix Ndagijimana, Karisoke’s deputy director; Pierre Kakule, co-director of the Fossey Fund’s programs in the Republic of Congo; and traditional Congo leader Mwami Alex Kalinda.

In addition, Brenau will be a sponsor of the Fossey Fund’s “Gorillas in the Mist” fundraising event Oct. 17 at the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta. Fossey Fund staff, scientists, celebrities and others will attend this event, which will feature a showing of the film “Gorillas in the Mist,” based on Dian Fossey’s life and work.

Brenau also will use the work of Fossey and the Fossey Fund as a starting point to help students explore issues related to science, conservation, the environment and global citizenship and related topics. All first-year students in Brenau’s Women’s College will be required to participate in a four-week series of lectures by Fossey Fund scientists and leading staff:

* “Nonprofit Leadership and Management in a War Zone,” by Clare Richardson, president and CEO of the Fund, Sept. 30.

* “Reaching the World: Mass Communication in Changing Times,” by Dr. Erika Archibald, Fossey Fund director of communications, Oct. 7.

* “The Role of Community-Focused Programs in Wildlife Conservation,” by Congo co-director Pierre Kakule and Congo leader Mwami Alex Kalinda, Oct. 14.

The United Nations Environmental Programme Convention on Migratory Species, the UNEP/UNESCO Great Apes Survival Partnership and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums have joined hands to declare 2009 the Year of the Gorilla. It is part of the United Nations organizations’ Decade of Education in Sustainable Development aimed at helping people develop the attitudes, skills and knowledge to make informed decisions for the benefit of themselves and others, now and in the future, and to act upon these decisions. Sustainable development is a vision of development that encompasses populations, animal and plant species, ecosystems, natural resources and that integrates concerns such as the fight against poverty, gender equality, human rights, education for all, health, human security, intercultural dialogue and many other globally entwined issues.

For more information on the Brenau-Fossey programs and Brenau’s sustainability initiative, go to www.brenau.edu/sustainability.

For more information on the Oct. 17 “Gorillas in the Mist” event in Atlanta, go to http://www.gorillafund.org/about/events_042009_mist.php

Link: Brenau sustainability initiative
Link: Gorilla Fund

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Shelly Williams Shot

Life plus 45 years: Sentence longer than requested for man whose gun ended primatologist’s work.

By Rhonda Cook

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Primatologist Shelly Williams got what she wanted in a Cobb County courtroom Friday. The man who shot and paralyzed her in 2005 was sentenced to life plus 45 years in prison.

“Justice was served,” she said.

Elliott Mitchell was convicted of nine felonies. He was also convicted of robbing and kidnapping Terrance Reid, a North Carolina man who was there to buy drugs from Mitchell and former co-defendant Kendall Bolden.

Bolden, 23, pleaded guilty on Monday and will be sentenced later.

When Reid tried to get out of the truck the men pulled him into, Mitchell hit him on the head with the gun. A bullet discharged, striking Williams. She was running an errand in a shopping center at Cobb Parkway and Spring Road.

Mitchell, 27, stood silently as Cobb Superior Court Judge Stephen Schuster gave him more prison time than the life plus 25 years the prosecutor requested.

Williams has not walked since Nov. 7, 2005.

At the time of the shooting, she had received worldwide attention for a discovery in the Republic of the Congo. She was planning a return trip to collect more evidence to document a new species of ape, seemingly a cross between a chimpanzee and a gorilla.

Her peers said at the time that her find could be one of the most significant wildlife discoveries in decades.

“It was groundbreaking,” Williams, 53, said in court.

Now the discovery will not be confirmed, Williams said, because only she knows where the apes are. She was taken to them by indigenous people she befriended with her knowledge of their language and culture.

“Not only did the bullet enter me and destroy my life, it entered my husband’s life and destroyed his life,” Williams said.

The tribe members she befriended also were hurt because she did not return and bring them medicines, Williams said.

She said people in the area died from colds and some had skin sores that would not heal without medicine.

Some were saved by the treatment she offered, Williams said.

“It’s a ripple effect,” she said. “I get shot and it’s not just me in Smyrna. It’s something that can have effects far-reaching.”

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Primatologist Shot

Verdict in Primatologist
Shooting Trial

Updated: Thursday, 26 Mar 2009, 5:50 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 26 Mar 2009, 12:28 PM EDT

• Edited by Steve Dixon

ATLANTA (MyFOX ATLANTA) - A jury reached a verdict Thursday in the case of a famous primate researcher who was shot and paralyzed during an attempted robbery. The jury decided that Elliott Mitchell was guilty on all counts.

Mitchell was accused of shooting and paralyzing world renowned primate researcher, Shelly Williams.

Williams was struck by a stray bullet when a drug deal went wrong at a Smyrna shopping center in 2005.

Investigators said the shot was fired when a fight broke out while Mitchell and his co-defendant, Kendall Bolden were in the area to sell drugs.

On Tuesday, Bolden admitted his guilt in the shooting which left Williams paralyzed.

Bolden and Mitchell were charged with armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated assault, theft by taking and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

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Frans B.M. deWaal's profile

"Frans B.M. de Waal (born 1948, the Netherlands) was trained as a zoologist and ethologist in the European tradition at three Dutch universities (Nijmegen, Groningen, Utrecht), resulting in a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Utrecht, in 1977. His dissertation research concerned aggressive behavior and alliance formation in macaques. In 1975, a six- year project was initiated on the world's largest captive colony of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo. Apart from a large number of scientific papers, this work found its way to the general public with Chimpanzee Politics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)."

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