Richard Leakey, trailblazing conservationist and fossil hunter, dies at 77

RICHARD Leakey, a Kenyan conservationist and paleontologist whose discoveries of fossils including “Turkana Boy” helped transform views on human evolution, has died. He was 77.

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the death and expressed condolences in a statement on Sunday, praising Leakey’s decades of public service roles as well. No details about the death were given.

WildlifeDirect, a conservation group Leakey started in 2004, said in a statement that he “was a mentor to dozens of Africans in diverse fields and had played a key role in shaping the world’s view on Africa’s place in the human evolution story, on the development of multi-party democracy in Kenya, and on influencing climate change dialogue.”

Leakey’s death was announced hours after that of Charles Njonjo, a longtime friend and Kenya’s first post-independence attorney general. Njonjo was 101. Kenyatta credited the two men with helping lay the foundation for