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Dr. Dian Fossey asked Ruth Keesling for help in 1983. Since Dian’s murder in 1985, Ruth and the MGCF have kept that promise. She started with 248 known mountain gorillas to be alive and today there are estimated to be 880 in the wild.
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These animals are not seen at zoos, but only in the wild. Since we are their closest relatives, we need to help them.
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The locals set snares in the National Park to capture deer or duiker (their food source), but the gorillas also get caught in the snares.
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If the gorilla are not tended to, they will die from the snare wounds, poaching and diseases.
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In response to the need to protect the gorillas, Ruth Keesling started a project called, “Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project”. In 1986, Dr. Jim Foster was the very first veterinarian to go to Rwanda and work.
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As it expanded, more Veterinarians were installed on location. The entire program was very basic and in great need of supplies.
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Ruth then started the Wildlife Animal Resource Management program at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda.
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This department teaches local Ugandan, Rwandan, Tanzanian, Kenyan and Congolese to become qualified as park rangers or they can continue on to become Veterinarians.
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This is the first of its kind for Africa and over the years, the department has become the fastest growing in the University.
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The current building is no longer large enough to house the number of veterinary students.
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Today, we are answering the call for action and now expanding the facility to become the Ruth Morris Keesling Center of Wildlife Health and Medicine to house the WARM Department. This will be a first of it's kind for Africa's wildlife.
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Scheduled to open in June 2012. This new facility will be teaching the local Africans to become qualified in wildlife health and management or they can continue on to become full Wildlife Veterinarians.
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Two building dedicated to laboratory research of infectious wildlife diseases. Each building will house nine labs or eighteen in total.
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Two large lecture halls with seating for 48 students.
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In the lower section we are constructing a Bio Hazard Level 1 facility which will house wildlife infectious diseases. The uniqueness of this facility is the samples are studied in the research laboratories right up stairs. Again, first of its kind for Africa.
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Ruth Keesling, and a friend
Dian Fossey’s final journal entry:
"When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.”
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