Mountain gorillas live in two isolated blocks, the Virunga massif and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Both have been under intensive protection for decades, with daily ranger patrols, veterinary intervention and tourism revenue tied directly to the animals. Counts rose from a few hundred in the 1980s to a published estimate above one thousand, and the subspecies was moved from Critically Endangered to Endangered in 2018.
Grauer's gorilla, the lowland subspecies, went the other way. Surveys published in 2016 estimated a decline of around three-quarters or more over roughly twenty years, driven by hunting linked to artisanal mining camps in a region difficult and dangerous to survey.
Because the Red List assesses the species as a whole, and Grauer's holds most of the animals, Gorilla beringei remains Critically Endangered even while its most famous population grows. The headline status and the local trend point in opposite directions.