Welcome to my Metazoic site! This site discusses the existence of the creatures to come along after humans will be extinct. I first became interested in a world after man when I acquired my first copy of Dougal Dixon's After Man: A Zoology of the Future in 1992. However, I unwittingly created creatures that did not exist from the time I was about 8 years old. But it was after I obtained a copy of that book (now a collector's item) that I decided to take these same creatures I created as a child and make them more realistic in an evolutionary sense. Though it may be hard for a lot of us to grasp, humans will soon become extinct. One of the biggest factors of how this will happen is the current overpopulation rate. Which is why I don't contribute to the population. I created this world with little more than mammals fulfilling all ecological niches with the help of some friends. I even gave the era of the age after man a name, I called it the Metazoic, derived from the words for "After-era" (Meta, meaning after, and zoic meaning era). We are now in the Cenozoic era. To view all the animals I have created since I began this project, you can go to the "Meet the Mammals" section of this site. To discuss your own ideas about what you think will happen in the future world, and share your ideas with others, please feel free to leave a comment.
One more thing, some of you may find this site quite offensive, and you have a right to your own opinion. But please respect my right to have an opinion too. I'm not saying there is no GOD, I believe it was HIM who got the ball rolling. But I believe after that, evolution took over. There is so much more evidence of evolution than there is of creation. Even that going on right under our noses. Other than that, enjoy yourself and visit our many links.

My Favorite Inspiration

This is a page devoted to the one I consider to be the greatest inspiration of my life. She is the person whose footsteps I hope to someday follow in, when I get the courage she had. Her name was Dian Fossey. As far as I'm concerned, she was the greatest ever! Far more inspirational than any TV personality. I've been the ultimate Dian Fossey fan since 1988 and have faithfully looked up to her since.

To get an idea why I so look up to her, I must tell her story as I know it. She visited Africa in 1963 because she had just finished reading a book by George Schaller titled "The Year of the Gorilla" and she became fascinated by the secretive and endangered mountain gorillas. She never got along as well with people as she did with animals, and she liked the idea of living in seclusion.

One of the last pictures taken of Dian Fossey when she was 53 years old.
Photo taken by Yann-Arthus Bertrand and Peter Arnold. Presented in LIFE
Magazine.

When she arrived in Africa, she met Dr. Louis Leaky. Leaky was fascinated by this tall, very beautiful American woman and showed her around his camp. They had conversed about Dian going to see the mountain gorillas and possibly studying them. 

Leaky was something of a jokester and told her if she really wanted to study the gorillas, she would have to have her appendix taken out. Dian thought he was serious and when she went back home, that was exactly what she did. A week or so after her operation, Leaky wrote to her saying that he was only kidding about having her appendix taken out, but that it proved to him how serious she was. It wasn't until 1966 that Leaky was able to get Dian the funding she would need to return to Rwanda, a small, overpopulated country in central Africa, to conduct a long-term study of the mountain gorillas.

Her first camp was set up in the Congo, but due to a civil war that was going on at that time, Dian was forced out of the country. It was at this time she met Rosamond Carr, who would soon become a very dear friend of her's. At first Dian wanted to conduct her studies on Mrs. Carr's plantation. She was a very determined woman, and very strong.

Afterwords, she would establish a new camp in Rwanda, right between 2 dormant volcanoes Karisimbi and Visoke. She combined the two names to come up with the name for her new camp base, "Karisoke". She began work almost immediately collecting new data and research. She wrote 2 articles for National Georaphic magazine. One in January of 1970, and the other in October of 1971. In 1970, she told the tale of how she rescued 2 baby orphan gorillas, which she named Coco and Pucker. They had been swiped by poachers from their parents to sell to the Cologne Zoo in Germany, but they were not the healthiest specimens, so Dian offered to nurse them back to health. During this time she learned how to "talk" like a gorilla. That is, she learned the languages they use to communicate with each other. One of the most commonly-used vocalizations she found they use is a pig-grunt, usually given while feeding.

Dian never fed the gorillas anything, or coaxed them in any way. But in 1970, she was actually accepted by the gorillas for the first time when Peanuts, a young blackback at that time, held hands with her. Dian was so filled with joy it brought tears to her eyes. It was the first ever human to gorilla physical contact ever made, and a huge accomplishment on Dian Fossey's part. Needless to say I'm sure now she felt she was doing things right.

Early 1978, Dian had the biggest heartbreak of her career, when Digit, a beloved friend and her closest field companion, was speared and hacked to death by poachers. What the poacher's motives were is unknown, but some feel they were trying to "get even" with Dian Fossey, as she was disliked among poachers and cattle herdsmen. This was the saddest break Dian Fossey would ever know. With Digit's death, the already imperiled mountain gorilla's population was now down to 350 animals. But it was also due to this cause that Dian Fossey established what she called "the Digit Fund"; now called the Dian Fossey Mountain Gorilla Fund. It is devoted to saving the mountain gorilla species from extinction. She took in donations and worked aggressively to keep the park protected. Some say in this period she went too far in her conservation efforts. She would torture the poachers, burn their houses down, shoot at their cattle, so it was said. The National Geographic Society believed she needed a break from conservation and studies, so they felt she should come down off the mountain. Dian took a break and a teaching job at Cornell University in 1980. It was here that she began working on her own book, "Gorillas in the Mist". Her work was completed and published in 1983 and available in several languages. It has become known as the greatest book ever written on the subject of gorillas.

Dian Fossey rather early in her career. This picture appeared in the 1970 issue of National Geographic with Dian's story about Coco and Pucker.
Photo taken by Alan Root.

In 1985, Dian Fossey returned to her home land, the Virunga mountains. She was weary and quite sick. Years of smoking had taken a toll on her breathing and she needed the use of an oxygen tank to go up and down the mountain. She rarely visited her gorilla friends anymore because of her declining health. But she never let her health stand in the way of running her conservation camp. She continued to send her army out to destroy traps and collect snares, and she still persecuted poachers to the fullest extent of the law, and beyond, some say. She seemed to be much more aggressive than ever.

In December 1985, Dian was overjoyed when she was given a 2-year work visa, instead of the usual 6-month visa. However, just as she was heading to her cabin from spending a day getting her work visa, she noticed a suspicious and very sinister figure on her doorstep. It was a wooden carving of a puff adder. Dian took these things very seriously and became scared. It was another form of sumu, what the Rwandese tribes use to place a curse on someone, and this was the harbinger of death. Though she was scared inside, she brushed it off in front of her colleagues.

Around Christmas morning, Dian's tracker was on his way into Dian's house. As he stepped inside, he noticed everything was in a shambles. Drawers were taken out of the bureau, things were thrown around everywhere, furniture was upturned and thrown about carelessly. In her bedroom, he noticed a terrifying and very sad sight, Dian Fossey was murdered. She was lying on the floor on her back, her face had been crushed open by an unknown assailant wielding a machete, or woodcutter's knife. A sad end to a life filled with excitement, passion and disappointment in many cases. 

She was buried in the gorilla cemetery behind her house, where she had also buried several gorilla friends, including Digit, whom she would now lie against. Even after her death, people were still bad-mouthing Dian Fossey, even some of those whom she had taken under her wing. They say she was a rotten, horrible person whose fate was inevitable. Those who loved her and had a chance to get close to her say those are extremely exaggerated accusations and I'm along with them. Dian Fossey was passionate about her conservation efforts...yes! This can be mistaken by the ignorant and inexperienced as someone who is hateful. It's no different really than how I protect my breed, chihuahuas, in my breeding program. 

Like Dian Fossey, I started with little to no experience, and learned as I went along. Like her, I try to do the right thing in preserving my breed, sometimes aggressively whenever necessary. Like her, I am highly against anyone who is trying to ruin the breed I love. Also like her, my passion and actions has earned me many enemies, particularly among those who prefer the puppymilling and backyard breeding route and those who choose to support them. However, it may be worth it if I can just prevent one more backyard breeder or puppymiller from doing what they do. I look up to Dian Fossey with the utmost pride and admiration. To do the things she did the way she did it, takes a lot of guts. This is something I hope to learn in my own quest. She left with us her legacy to continue the species of the mountain gorilla, and I help out as much as I can, as I'd hate to think that Dian Fossey would have ever died in vain!

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