A fragile comeback: David Attenborough’s “A Gorilla Story” reveals a rare conservation success
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In the dense forests of Rwanda’s Virunga Mountains, mist hangs low over the slopes. A group of gorillas has fallen still as a collective somber mood blankets them. At their center is Inyange, lingering in the wake of an unthinkable loss.
Her firstborn infant has been killed — the result of a vicious attack by an outcast gorilla.
In “A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough,” filmmakers capture the aftermath of the tragedy, and the quiet way it ripples through the group.
Scenes like this are rarely witnessed so closely, but feel immediately recognizable, and mirror something deeply human. It’s a reminder of how much we have in common.
“We share about 98% of our DNA with gorillas,” says Tara Stoinski, CEO and chief scientific officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, an organization dedicated to protecting gorillas and their forest ecosystems.
She says we also share many behavioral traits with gorillas — like lifelong bonds, caring for the vulnerable and coming together around a mother in grief.
The film captures rare social dynamics, including a dramatic, unanticipated two-year dominance challenge between silverbacks Ubwuzu and Gicurasi, illustrating how multi-male mountain gorilla groups share leadership and how stable male coalitions contribute to the group’s success.
These discoveries are only possible because these critically endangered mountain gorilla families have survived, and against the odds are slowly growing in number again.
Mountain gorillas are found only in East Africa’s high-altitude forests within Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “A Gorilla Story” follows Rwanda’s Virunga region population, which rebounded from around 250 individuals in the 1980s to roughly 600 today.
They are one of the only great ape species whose numbers are increasing, with the total African population now over 1,000.
Their recovery is often held up as a rare conservation win — one built on decades of intensive protection, scientific research and close collaboration with local communities.
That success can be traced back to a determined presence in the forest: American primatologist Dian Fossey.
In 1967, Fossey traveled to Rwanda to study mountain gorillas. She found a population under immediate threat from poaching and habitat pressure — one she feared could disappear within decades. She shifted from observation to action, pioneering a hands-on approach to conservation with daily protection in the forest, from removing snares to deterring poachers.
She was murdered there in 1985, but the impact of her work endures — helping reshape how mountain gorillas are viewed by revealing the complexity and gentleness of a species long misunderstood.
“When she started, I think the image of gorillas was King Kong/ferocious beasts, and by integrating herself into their society and telling the stories of these gorilla families, she changed public perception,” Stoinski said.
Around a decade into Fossey’s research, renowned naturalist Attenborough filmed a segment for his “Life on Earth” series at her Rwandan outpost. There he met a three-year-old gorilla named Pablo, who playfully reclined on top of him. This spontaneous, iconic scene helped raise global awareness for the declining mountain gorilla population.
Attenborough, now 99, describes the moment as one of the most exciting encounters of his life, and compelled him to revisit this gorilla family again, some 50 years later in “A Gorilla Story.”
“It is a connection that has stayed with me my whole life,” Attenborough said in the film. “It’s one of the greatest conservation success stories that I’ve witnessed, and perhaps that’s down to the profound connection people feel towards gorillas.”
Pablo eventually broke off to form his own group in 1993, which went on to become the largest mountain gorilla family ever recorded in the wild. At its peak, the Pablo group reached 65 gorillas.
They are one of the most closely studied mountain gorilla families today, spanning nearly six decades of monitoring, originating from Fossey’s groundbreaking 1960s research on Pablo’s birth family: Group 5.
Filmed over two years in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, “A Gorilla Story” follows the present-day descendants of the historic Pablo group — capturing the social dynamics, shifting alliances and quiet negotiations that shape life within the group.
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund was involved throughout filming, Stoinski says, serving as scientific advisers — identifying the key characters, providing historical context and interpreting their behaviors on the ground.
Beyond the patriarch power transfer from Ubwuzu to Gicurasi, which is a rare sight to witness Stoinski says, the film reveals the often-overlooked influence of females, such as Teta, whose strategic shift in allegiance and role in integrating newcomer Inyange revealed complex social strategies and the support networks within gorilla society.
Stoinski says their long-term data has revealed that these specific gorillas consistently have groups led by multiple adult males. They’ve also seen that about half of the males leave their birth group to form new families.
Today, more than half of the organization’s 200 Rwandan staff are in the forest every day, monitoring the gorillas. Other organizations are active on the ground as well, like Gorilla Doctors, which provides veterinary care to help safeguard these creatures.
Conservation efforts extend beyond protecting gorillas — Stoinski says they also focus on issues around climate change, sustainable development and habitat preservation. The organization conducts more than 30 studies on broader biodiversity on plants and other animals in the region to assess ecosystem health, and trains African scientists in field methods and monitoring, she adds.
Though the rugged terrain of the Virunga Mountains makes their habitat feel remote, Stoinski says that in a lot of ways, it is not: “Right on the edge of the forest, you have one of the highest human population densities in rural Africa, and there’s no buffer zone.”
“You have people, and then you have this small wall, and then you have the forest, and the gorillas are basically confined to the top of these six volcanoes,” she adds
A low stone wall acts as a physical boundary separating the abutting farmland from the forest, which discourages animals from encroaching upon crops, and reduces human-wildlife conflict.
The proximity makes community integration essential to conservation. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund partners with local communities to improve food and water security, education and alternative livelihoods — so people are less dependent on forest resources.
Stoinski says conservation only works if it works for the whole ecosystem, including people.
Ecotourism is also a key conservation driver: 10% of government gorilla trekking permit revenue is shared with surrounding communities, creating economic incentives to protect gorillas and their habitat.
Mountain gorillas remain endangered and are heavily conservation-dependent, with their only significant threats coming from humans, including habitat pressure and snares set for other wildlife.
“They don’t have really natural predators,” Stoinski says, “The reason these animals are at risk is because of our behavior.”
She hopes the film will spark compassion for these mountain giants.
“Just seeing the similarities between us highlights how important it is for us to conserve them in the long term,” Stoinski says. “They are among the planet’s most at-risk species,” she adds.
Protecting gorillas is about more than saving a single species — it’s about safeguarding entire ecosystems critical to life on Earth.
“These forests are the lungs of the planet,” Stoinski says, “By protecting gorillas, who care for the forests, we’re also helping ourselves.”
“A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough” is now streaming on Netflix.
