Ian Redmond

And... Sitting amongst the gorillas came out with a very profound statement.

And in those few moments, David Attenborough changed the world's perception of gorillas.

It just unfolded as it happened.

I don't know how much preparation as to what he was going to say David had made, but without a script and with a small film crew sitting amongst the gorillas, it came out with a very profound...

statement about human-gorilla perceptions and relations, which had always been mutual animosity and fear, mainly because gorillas saw humans as a deadly threat, and most humans who approached gorillas were trying to kill them.

We had the benefit of Diane Fossey.

Diane had been studying those gorillas since 1967, and I'd been her assistant for a little over a year at that point.

So the gorillas knew me, and it's, to some people, extraordinary.

Gorillas understand the concept of a friend of a friend.

So if they trust you and you're with a bunch of strangers, they'll look at you and they'll look at them and think, OK, they're together, that's fine.

And that's why at that point, that was the biggest group of strangers we brought into the study groups, because there was no guerrilla tourism in those days.

And in those few moments, David Attenborough changed the world's perception of guerrillas.

I think the impact was twofold.

The public suddenly saw gorillas that they'd only seen in the kind of King Kong context as raging monsters, as friendly family animals who would even be friendly to a visitor.

And that changed public perception.

But behind the scenes, this filming took place literally 10 days after one of our study group, a young silverback called Digit.

Digit had been killed by poachers.

So the BBC crew arrived in a very dramatic time when there was poaching happening

There was grief.

And then they made this lovely short sequence.