Adrien Deschryver ( — ) was a Belgian photographer and conservationist, who established and was chief warden of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park near the western bank of

Lake Kivu Lake Kivu is one of the African Great Lakes. It lies on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and is in the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift. Lake Kivu empties into the Ruzizi River, which ...

and the

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

n border in 1970, and acted to maintain law and order within the park during a civil war around

Bukavu Bukavu is a city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), lying at the extreme south-western edge of Lake Kivu, west of Cyangugu in Rwanda, and separated from it by the outlet of the Ruzizi River. It is the capital of the South Kivu P ...

Work in Africa

Early work with Gorillas

In the 1960s, Deschryver and

Dian Fossey Dian Fossey ( ; January 16, 1932 – ) was an American primatologist and conservationist known for undertaking an extensive study of mountain gorilla groups from 1966 until her murder in 1985. She studied them daily in the mountain forests of ...

gained much prominence in their approach of two subspecies of gorillas in Rwanda and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

. The former had started approaching gorillas during the mid-1960s for tourism, accompanied by two trackers of the Pygmy tribe, Pili Pili Purusi and Mishebere Patrice.

Creation and work in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park

In 1970, Deschryver convinced the recently created Congolese administration of the need for an extended protected natural reserve in the region, the hunting of gorillas having reduced their population to a critical level. This led to the creation that year of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. The 1974 documentary ''Gorilla'' showed Deschryver bringing an abandoned baby gorilla into the forest to help it adjust to its natural habitat. The baby gorilla began to call out when it heard other gorillas, and was subsequently dropped by Deschryver when the dominant

silverback Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five subs ...

several times very aggressively screamed at him and then made one last charge at him. The silverback had earlier attempted to either attack or intimidate Deschryver, but ultimately backed away when Deschryver did not move or flinch. The clip of Deschryver resisting the silverback's earlier charge has since gone viral, with memes concerning Deschryver's courageousness. Others have noted that the clip shows how demeanor and fearlessness can establish dominance over size and strength. Dian Fossey criticized Deschryver for this action and for simply running away afterwards. She claimed that the baby gorilla was never seen again. Deschryver identified the habitats of eastern lowland gorillas after consulting with Twa villagers in the park during the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s, he returned to their villages with Congolese troops and park guards, destroying several and forcibly displacing their inhabitants. Deschryver died in unclear circumstances, possibly through poisoning, and is buried at the Tshivanga headquarters.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Deschryver, Adrien Lake Kivu History of Bukavu 1939 births 1989 deaths Belgian conservationists Belgian photographers African Pygmies Violence against indigenous peoples in Africa People from Bruges