Her father, Julian, was a publisher of several small-town newspapers, and her mother, Lillian, left her work as a legal secretary to raise Cynthia and her older sister, Carolyn.
[1] In 1967, Moss took a leave of absence so she could see the African continent herself, which had been described to her in letters by her college friend, Penny Naylor, who had recently moved to Africa.
To gain the experience and credentials she needed to begin her own study of elephants, she worked with Sue and Tony Harthoorn in Nairobi, Kenya as a veterinary assistant, assisted in research on plains animals and elephant feeding behavior in Tsavo National Park, and became an editor for the newsletter of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Wildlife News.
[1] In 1972, Moss was encouraged by ecologist David "Jonah" Western to consider studying the last undisturbed elephant herd in Africa, in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya.
In 1975, Moss published her book Portraits in the Wild, which gave her respect in the field, and aided her in receiving a $5,000 grant from the AWF, thus allowing her to devote nearly all of her time to the study of the elephants of Amboseli.
That year, Moss set up camp in the park and began to gather information on the elephant’s behavior, daily movements, and relationships.
And thanks to her work combined with many others and conservation groups, the African Elephant was placed on the Endangered species list in October of 1989 and in January of 1990, the sale of ivory was prohibited.