Getting to Know the Gorilla

Canadian writer and naturalist Farley Mowat. Mowat has written widely on nature and wildlife and championed the cause of harp seals, whales, wolves, Eskimos. His books include A Whale for the Killing, The Boat Who Wouldn't Float and Never Cry Wolf. His latest book, Woman in the Mists, is the story of Dian Fossey, the American woman who studied and lived with the mountain gorillas of Rwanda, Africa. Fossey was murdered at her remote base camp in 1985. (This is the first part of a two-part interview with Mowat.) (Contains portion of Dian Fossey interview; May 12, 1982).

Researcher Dian Fossey returns to Fresh Air to share more of her findings about gorillas' social and sexual behavior, and her experience confronting poachers, all of which she details in a new book.

The Fresh Air poet-in-residence reads a new work, "The Ivory Novel," in which he dreams of writing a novel about saving African elephants from poachers.