The Touching Story Of How Sir David Attenborough Saved A Population Of Gorillas From Extinction

Sir David Attenborough has rightfully given so much back to the world and has had an everlasting impact on society and the planet by virtue…

Sir David Attenborough has rightfully given so much back to the world and has had an everlasting impact on society and the planet by virtue of his documentaries of the world’s wildlife and biodiversity.

In these testing times, with climate change, and carbon emissions destroying our planet’s ecosystems, we have been compelled to take action and safeguard the Earth’s natural environment.

This particular touching story takes place in the Virunga mountains which lie in the northern borders of Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Uganda.

Sir David Attenborough, the BBC’s wildlife expert and TV presenter, visited the area in 1970 and came in contact with a troop of a few mountain gorillas who inhabited a section of the Virunga mountains.

While the BBC were shooting Sir David and his exchanges with the gorillas, one tiny gorilla child, affectionately dubbed “Poppy”, began to play with his shoes and tried taking them off.

At the time, the small group of gorillas were battling extinction. Their population was dwindling and there were only about 250 of them left in the region.

This was primarily because a lot of forest land was being converted into agricultural land, owing to Rwanda being a very poor nation and the expansion of agriculture was the only way for people in the region to survive.

Apart from that, the park was battling several poachers who would set up snares and cut bamboo, a plant essential to mountain gorillas.

However, over the course of the next few decades, the situation would gradually change.

All three countries’ governments came together along with conservation groups with the aim of not only saving the population of gorillas, but also helping the communities that lived adjacent to the park.

The government installed a revenue sharing scheme in which part of the fee tourists pay to visit the park would be reserved for the communities in the area.

The result was that land encroaching began to reduce and subsequently, the population of mountain gorillas skyrocketed to over 1000.

“Poppy” grew up and grew old, since Sir David’s initial visit in 1970, becoming a gorilla that lived a long, healthy and thriving life and she had several offspring.

In the video below, Sir David Attenborough and the BBC recount his visit to the area in 1970 and the changes and awareness that was raised of that particular population of mountain gorillas. Interest gradually grew and resulted in people coming together to intervene and save them from the brink of extinction.

Poppy’s daughter and granddaughter are also shown in the short video, in what is an impassioned and heartwarming story of how creating awareness and people coming together can usher change and safeguard the planet.

It further shows how by raising a voice, instigating awareness and working together, we can protect our planet’s biodiversity and lush ecosystems while also ensuring human progress and upliftment.