In 1967, when Dian Fossey began her pioneering work documenting the mountain gorillas in Rwanda, she had only basic tools to work with: pen and paper, a manual typewriter and a camera. With these she collected information on individual gorillas, drew maps, made sketches of their noseprints and began chronicling their daily lives and behaviors. Each night she returned from the forest with her handwritten notes and typed them up on the manual typewriter in her cabin. These notes were then stored in large looseleaf notebooks and formed the beginning of what is now one of the longest-running databases on any wild animal.

Dian Fossey took handwritten notes in the field, then typed them up in in her cabin in the evenings.
Fast forward to today, and our more than 25 teams of trackers and researchers who are in the field every day carrying on this work have access to an array of digital tools and other technology that are improving how we study and protect the gorillas. For example, our staff in the field now use smart devices for digital data collection, which are easily uploaded to our centralized databases. This positions us to harness the capabilities of state-of-the-art cloud-based systems, expanding accessibility and opportunity for scientific research and conservation decision making.

Studying the forest with cameras and microphones
Our trackers in Rwanda and the DR Congo are in the forest every day, but by using camera traps and acoustic recording devices, we can also monitor the gorillas – as well as other animals – even when we can’t see them. This is especially useful for animals that are not used to the presence of humans in the forest, and those who roam at night or are otherwise difficult to visualize – like those who call the forest canopy home. In addition, our research staff is now working on using artificial intelligence to analyze some of these recordings!
Another technological advance has been the development of photogrammetry, which uses photographs and lasers to measure the size of gorillas and their growth patterns, all from a distance and without disturbing their natural behaviors.
And learning in the laboratory too
Some of our modern tools even allow us to learn more about the gorillas just by collecting fecal samples they have left behind. In our laboratories at our Ellen Campus, we study gorilla diets, stressors, and reproductive hormones, and we continuously look at additional analyses. Our labs also help us further understand and document the biodiversity that lives alongside the gorillas, particularly groups that are little studied, such as invertebrates.
Thanks to these and other technological advancements, our research and conservation activities are entering an era of unprecedented insight and effectiveness. What began as Dian Fossey’s solitary journey in the field with pen and paper has blossomed into a sophisticated, data- and technology-supported approach, with the promise of further breakthroughs in understanding and protecting one of the world’s most iconic and endangered species.

We learn a lot about gorillas from our lab work, analyzing fecal samples they’ve left behind in the forest.