Silverbacks and greenbacks: the catch-22 at the heart of gorilla conservation

Back in 1979, an estimated 500 million television viewers watched a landmark moment in natural history documentaries, as David Attenborough sat with mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Attenborough said at the time: "There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than with any other animal I know." The gorillas that Attenborough met were habituated for research purposes, and since then many gorilla groups have been habituated purely for tourism. As a result, thousands of tourists have now visited Rwanda and Uganda’s wild mountain gorillas and, to a lesser extent, the lowland gorillas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Gabon