Twenty Milestones in Mountain Gorilla Conservation
The mountain gorilla’s recovery from approximately 250 individuals in the 1980s to more than 1,000 today is one of the most comprehensively documented conservation recoveries in the history of wildlife science — documented because the gorilla research programme that Dian Fossey established in 1967 created the baseline data record and the institutional infrastructure that subsequent conservation progress was built on. The milestones below trace the key events in that recovery.
1967 — Karisoke Research Centre Established
Dian Fossey established the Karisoke Research Centre at 3,000 metres on the saddle between Karisimbi and Bisoke volcanoes in September 1967, beginning the continuous gorilla monitoring programme that is now the world’s longest-running great ape research effort. Fossey’s habituation of the Susa and other families created the data and human presence foundation for all subsequent tourism and conservation work.
1978 — First Mountain Gorilla Population Census
The first comprehensive count of the Virunga mountain gorilla population — 268 individuals — established a baseline against which all subsequent population estimates are measured. The 1978 count revealed a 50% population decline from the estimated 1950s population of around 500 animals, triggering international conservation alarm that drove the funding and policy responses of the 1980s.
1980 — Digit Fund and International Fundraising
Following the poaching killing of the silverback Digit in 1977 — documented in photographs and film that created a global public response — Fossey established the Digit Fund, the first international fundraising effort specifically targeting mountain gorilla protection. The Digit Fund eventually became the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International after Fossey’s 1985 murder at Karisoke.
1991 — Bwindi Gazettement and Tourism Launch
Bwindi Impenetrable National Park was gazetted in Uganda in 1991, protecting the second mountain gorilla population in the Bwindi forest (which harbours a genetically distinct population from the Virunga group), and the first Bwindi gorilla trekking permits were sold in 1993, beginning the Uganda tourism contribution to gorilla conservation funding.
2004 and 2010 — Population Censuses Show Growth
The 2004 Virunga census recorded 380 individuals — the first documented increase above the 1978 baseline. The 2010 census recorded 480 individuals in the Virunga and an estimated 400 in Bwindi, totalling approximately 880 mountain gorillas across both populations — the first time the population had approached 1,000 in the modern monitoring era.
2018 — The 1,000 Individual Milestone
The 2018 IUCN assessment of the mountain gorilla population — combining the most recent Virunga and Bwindi censuses — recorded a total population above 1,000 individuals for the first time since systematic monitoring began. The milestone was widely reported as a conservation success story and was used by the IUCN to change the mountain gorilla’s Red List classification from Critically Endangered to Endangered — a shift of one category in the wrong direction from recovery, but a meaningful improvement from the critical status of previous decades.
The Ongoing Challenge
Despite the population recovery, the mountain gorilla remains one of the most endangered large mammals on earth — confined to two small forest areas totalling approximately 800 square kilometres, surrounded by one of the densest human population landscapes in Africa, and dependent on continued high-quality conservation management for its survival. The 1,000-individual milestone is the beginning of the recovery story, not its end.
