This is the beginning of a perilous journey...
to one of the most forbidding places on earth...
the rainforests of the Congo.
We're searching for one of our closest relatives...
Africa's largest primate.
This remarkable creature has, until now...
remained unknown to us in the wild.
Yet if we can discover its true character we may find vital clues...
to our own human nature.
We're here on the trail of King Kong.
In the 1933 film classic, "King Kong"...
is an aggressive brute who falls for the gorgeous Fay Wray...
only to get cut down in his prime.
The story was based on early accounts...
of a supposedly vicious ape, but how true to life was it?
Our Congo journey starts where King Kong's journey ended...
In spite of appearances, I'm not in the heart of Africa.
I'm in New York City.
Nearly every gorilla in every zoo around the world...
is a lowland gorilla brought from the Congo years ago...
and now born and bred in captivity.
The wonderful Bronx Zoo is probably the best home for gorillas...
outside Africa.
But it's a million miles from their true home.
The amazing truth is that at the start of the 21st century...
one of our nearest relatives is still a mystery to us...
we've almost no idea how these creatures live in the wild...
what they eat, what sort of families they have.
We don't even know if they're hanging on to survival...
in the dark wilderness that is the Congo.
So near and yet so far.
This is one of our closest relations...
and yet, until comparatively recently...
a complete stranger, but all that is now changing.
Deep in the Congo forests, a group of remarkable naturalists...
are discovering the true nature of the lowland gorilla.
And that is our African adventure, a safari deep into the Congo...
in search of King Kong's wild cousins.
First stop is the Atlantic coast of Africa...
Libreville, in Gabon.
This is the safest route in to the Congo forests.
The man charged with this toughest of filming ventures...
is Gavin Thurston, with his assistants James and Ralph.
I've been filming wildlife for 20 years....
but I reckon this project is going to be my biggest challenge so far...
and to be honest I'm a bit wary, civil war, malaria...
and we've all heard frightening stories about charging gorillas.
Picking up supplies in the market there were some shocking signs...
that the forests we're heading into are under threat.
We're off into the unknown...
deep into the most remote corners of the Congo.
My first impression was like flying over the broccoli counter at Tescos.
I was amazed at the sheer scale of it.
Catching wild animals for meat may seem cruel...
but they haven't got supermarkets out here.
The Heart of Darkness got its name from shocking accounts and images...
sent back by the first explorers.
They told stories of "a hideous creature, half man, half beast...
with an awful expression like a nightmare vision".
They played up their heroic encounters with this vicious creature...
a savage killer which must be tamed.
And that is how the brutal King Kong was born.
But very few lowland gorillas...
have ever been seen alive in their natural home.
Almost all we know has come from a handful of mountain gorillas...
living on the hills and peaks along the eastern edges of the Congo.
These are spectacular creatures, covered with long shaggy hair...
that keeps them warm up here in their cold mountain home.
They live on the ground, eating the leaves and shoots...
of the plants which thrive in these high altitude forests.
But in truth these are rare oddities...
there are perhaps only four or five hundred mountain gorillas...
left in the wild. And we know about them mainly...
because they've been habituated to human presence.
You can even take tourist trips to visit them.
Beyond the mountains lies the great unknown.
The Congo jungles are said to be home to thousands of lowland gorillas.
But how many are left? And what sort of creatures are they?
For three days Gavin and his crew...
journey up the Mambili River into northern Congo.
They're heading for a place called Odzala...
unheard of until just a few years ago.
Stories had been coming out of huge clearings in the forest there...
full of forest animals. Will they find lowland gorillas?
By now Ralph, James and Gavin are deep in the Congo.
It's a hostile world.
The Mambili River becomes narrower, and finally impassable.
From here on it'll have to be on foot.
The Congo forests are said to be full of elephants...
antelopes and apes...
but Gavin and his crew will be lucky to see anything...
forest animals have incredibly sensitive sight, smell and hearing.
And they won't hang around to see who the visitors are.
Some of these animals are dangerous too. They'll charge without hesitation.
Despite the fact that it's about 30 degrees...
and 80 percent humidity...
it's actually quite a pleasant walk.
Shame we have to cart all this blooming film gear with us.
The only difference really between here and England...
apart from the heat and the humidity is here...
at any moment we could run into some animals such...
as elephant, buffalo or gorilla.
After seven days travelling by plane, truck...
canoe, and now on foot...
finally we see a huge clearing in the forest.
Amazingly we've seen our first silverback gorilla.
It's encouraging to know that they're actually here...
we've seen one within the first few minutes.
This is Maya Nord, only discovered in 1992.
In the Congo these natural clearing are called "bais"...
literally a bay, or opening...
and they seem to act like magnets for the forest creatures.
Maya Nord is one of the great wildlife discoveries of recent times.
A magical, mysterious place.
A vast open arena in the midst of impenetrable jungle.
Here there are forest elephants, sitatunga antelopes...
buffalo, colobus monkeys...
even giant forest hogs.
They all seem to co-exist in perfect harmony.
Even that most elusive of forest antelopes, the bongo...
comes to Maya Nord.
And there are lowland gorillas here too, in huge numbers.
This is how I imagined the garden of Eden...
a place where all the forest animals come together to eat, and play...
and socialise.
It seems there's never a dull moment.
What a sight!
As I settled in to start filming from a platform on the edge of the bai...
I felt at last the journey had been worthwhile.
I'd never expected to see so many lowland gorillas...
and they look quite different from the mountain gorillas.
The hair on their heads is chestnut coloured...
they're much more brown, except the big male "silverbacks"...
and they're much less hairy altogether.
The trouble is that Maya Nord is a grassy swamp full of water pools...
and the gorillas are miles away.
Gavin's never going to get intimate shots of them from here.
He's going to have to find a way of getting a bit closer.
Around the edges of Maya Nord are some smaller bais.
Gavin, James and Ralph...
set up a filming hide on the edge of one of them...
much closer to the gorillas.
The trouble is that commuting to work can involve a bit of traffic.
We've got a slight problem that we've come to the little bai.
I'm going to try and get into the hide...
but there's a herd of about 15 buffalo just on the edge...
There go some African Grey Parrots.
The trouble is they're a bit dodgy to get close to...
we're going to have to wait for them to drift further from the hide...
before it's safe to go in there.
We also want to make sure they don't come this way and us get trampled.
And we can also smell that there's some gorilla here as well...
just to add to the excitement.
Finally I can settle in to my hide.
It's like a steam room in here.
But hopefully it'll get me closer to the gorillas.
The gorillas spend their nights in the forest...
only coming out here during the day.
A huge silverback, an adult male weighing nearly 200 kilos...
leads his family into the bai.
He appears to have a harem of four females, each with their young.
They've obviously come to feed, but on what?
Do these plants provide nutrition they can't find in the forests?
The youngsters seem to depend entirely on their mothers.
Hitch-hiking on mum's back is standard travel.
The silverback seems pretty laid back, not at all an offensive brute.
The only sign of aggro here comes from two females...
obviously in dispute over something. But what?
Their rank in the pecking order? The care of young?
A tussle over food? It's impossible to say.
The gorillas are coming close, a bit too close for my liking.
They seem to be noticing the reflection in my lens.
Two hundred kilos of sheer muscle...
The only thing between me and this silverback...
is a thin sheet of nylon.
And he's clearly not happy.
The silverback gorilla that was in the bai...
has just charged off into the forest and he was barking loudly.
He's definitely wary of the hide, perhaps he sees it as a threat.
Well amazingly, nothing's broken. But I was left well shaken.
It's not called rainforest for nothing.
At this time of year there's a downpour nearly every day.
And the gorillas seem to understand that a wide open space...
isn't a clever place to hang out during a thunderstorm.
Odzala National Park is such a special place...
that the European Commission itself has taken on the huge cost...
of running and protecting it. And it's still largely a mystery.
Nobody has yet studied these gorillas.
It's like watching a soap opera with the sound turned down.
Who's doing what to whom? We just don't know.
But there are stories of a place deeper in the Congo forests...
where two naturalists have started a study of gorilla family life.
Gavin heads eastwards to investigate.
Loggers have cut a wide road through this pristine forest...
to reach some of the best timber in the world.
Nearly every patch of forest in the Congo has been assigned...
to some logging company somewhere.
Some of these trees are 800 years old.
Each one is worth thousands of dollars just as raw wood.
And for a poor African country it's tempting to cut it down...
cash it in, but these are gorillas' homes.
Great mechanical caravans carry the timber away...
siphoned out of the Congo by truck and train.
But Gavin is heading the other way. To a wild-looking place...
even the loggers have not yet reached.
This is the Ndoki, one of Congo's most remote regions.
The only way through these dark forests and tangled swamps...
is by pirogue, canoes carved from tree-trunks.
The Ndoki River leads to the tiny Mbeli stream...
the only route to another remarkable bai...
Mbeli.
For the last three years Mbeli bai has been base camp...
for two intrepid young men intent on discovering the truth...
about family life among the lowland gorillas.
Ten hours a day, seven days a week, come rain come shine...
Richard Parnell from England and Dave Morgan from Florida...
come to their platform.
Armed with telescopes, cameras and notebooks...
they record the comings and goings here at "gorilla junction".
Dave and Richard are incredible.
They've identified over 130 gorillas who come to the bai.
At this stage, they all look the same to me.
The first arrival of the day. Who is it?
Which family is it? Are they all there?
Dave and Richard reckon about 1 4 families come here regularly...
plus quite a few lone silverbacks.
But why do they come? Is this a giant salad bar...
or just a place to socialise?
Is it a pick-up joint for the lone silverbacks?
Looks like Clive is moving across but...
he seemed a little bit alert to me.
Clive leads his family into the open...
followed by his three females and their young.
Out here, the normal "rules of engagement" are ignored.
Massive silverbacks, usually fiercely protective of their groups...
pass within a few metres of each other without any sign of anger...
though if they do come too close, a gentle water splash says...
"That's close enough!"
It's astonishing to see gorillas up to their waists in the swampy marsh.
It used to be thought gorillas didn't like water at all...
and would avoid crossing rivers or streams for fear of it...
but they're perfectly at home out here in the marshes.
These truly are "amphibious apes".
In the deeper streams the gorillas walk on their hind legs...
to keep their heads above water.
Is this how we first learned to walk upright too?
It's easy to imagine that once upon a time...
our own early ancestors moved like this...
taking their first tentative steps to bipedalism.
Crossing water is easier if you're standing upright...
and you also have a better chance of spotting distant predators...
Though its rare for a leopard to attack an adult gorilla.
It's the floating mats of vegetation which attract them.
Gorillas love to eat fruit when it's available...
but out here there are always vast quantities of juicy stems and leaves.
With amazing dexterity...
they strip off the outer layers of the stems...
to get at the tastier shoots within.
Their hands are huge.
Out here in the open there's bright sunlight and copious water...
the perfect recipe for green growth...
endless food for gorillas, especially sedges and water lilies.
The gorillas stay on average for about two hours' intensive munching.
They come from far and wide, to this salad oasis...
in the midst of the forest.
Yet another surprise is to see lowland gorillas washing their food.
After pulling up a handful of "hydrocharis"...
they give the roots a quick swish through the water...
to clean off mud and debris.
Lowland gorillas are more intelligent than we had assumed.
With so much food around, and with Dad in relaxed mood...
the bai is a playground for youngsters.
A rare opportunity to meet long lost cousins...
and maybe even make a few new friends.
It's not unlike a primary school playground.
The bai may seem a picture of calm co-existence...
but all is not quite as it appears.
And it's the black-back males that are likely to disrupt things.
Between 8 and 12 years old...
the young males become the spotty teenagers of the gorilla world...
the ones most worried about rank and appearances.
These guys have got something to prove.
These bruisers can't resist the temptation to show off to the girls...
have a pop at a rival male, prove who's number one.
Without getting hurt, if possible.
But this is serious stuff.
If these young thugs are ever to become adult silverbacks...
they'll have to fight for a female, defend their young...
protect their patch.
The bai may be a playground, but it's also a jousting arena...
a boxing ring.
Sometimes the rough-housing rouses the real silverbacks.
A splash display.
This is when gorillas are most like King Kong.
These forests are so remote, so vast...
that they're a refuge for many thousands of lowland gorillas.
A fabulous natural treasure that's only just been discovered.
Richard and Dave are not even trying to get any closer to these gorillas.
They want to observe them without affecting their natural behaviour.
Yet even from this distance, they've got to know the gorillas intimately.
Within moments of a new arrival Dave tells me who it is.
This is Clive's group and we recognise Clive...
by the marking above his right nostril...
and his very straight brow ridge...
and very well kept hair...
especially on top of his crest.
The family settle down to feed.
Clive's a young silverback with three females.
Winona and Jody both have young infants, Wendy and Lyle.
But this is a gorilla family with problems.
Clive was in a fight with another silverback a few years ago...
and lost all his females.
He always seems edgy now.
Meanwhile, it looks like trouble is brewing between Winona and Jody.
Clive has noticed the strain between them. How will he react?
There's some tension building between those two females.
-That's Jody? -Yes.
Clive's spotted it, he's checking them out.
Jody's vocalising now.
Clive's coming, he's spotted there's some trouble going on.
Those females are going at it...
Man, look, they're there. Here come the infants.
-They're really going at it... -Here comes Clive as well.
He's sorting it out. Is that Jody's he's chasing?
He's got Jody. Clive's really got her pinned down.
He just stormed in there.
He looks like he's really hurting her.
He won't let her up at all.
-Is she under there now? -Yes.
The youngsters are clearly distressed.
He's letting her go.
-I think she's up. -He's backing off.
Clive seems to realise he's over-reacted.
As quickly as the row flares up, it subsides.
Peace is restored.
Jody nurses her bruises and is comforted by her son Lyle.
Poor thing. That's what you get if you...
start biting your fellow females, I guess.
Young gorillas are mama's boys, and girls.
They're very clingy for the first two or three years...
and learn nearly everything from their mothers by example.
Water's harmless. That's good to eat.
This is how you strip the root and clean it.
It seems an idyllic life, apart from leopards...
there are few creatures to fear.
Gorillas seem at home with their neighbours...
the other animals of the forest.
An enormous silverback creeps into the bai.
It's Bear, a known troublemaker.
Clive stops eating, aware that he's not alone.
Winona and Jody have noticed Bear too, it's them he's interested in.
Clive's authority's being challenged again.
How will he react to Bear the bully?
Bear approaches closer, but Clive's not about to back down.
There, Clive's doing a splash display.
So is Bear.
Another one from Clive, a two handed splash display.
He's really mad.
They're still fifty metres apart.
Yet Bear decides not to press his threat.
To young Lyle's delight, Dad wins the day.
Bear retreats. As usual, it's all bluff.
Gorillas are not like King Kong.
If they can settle things without getting hurt, they will.
Richard and Dave are pioneers of lowland gorilla behaviour...
but, as they admit, there's still a huge gap in their knowledge.
These gorillas spend nearly all their time in the forest...
not out here in the open.
Each evening we'd watch the gorillas leave the bai...
and we'd wonder what they get up to in the forest.
Can such a large animal really climb these trees?
Filming gorillas in the forest was obviously crucial to the story...
yet it seemed an impossible dream.
A few months later we heard stories of a Spanish couple...
who'd ventured deep into the forests at a place called Lossi...
two hundred miles away.
They were attempting the impossible...
getting close to lowland gorillas in the heart of the jungle.
But just getting there was another adventure.
The forests at Lossi are open at the high canopy level...
but incredibly dense down near the ground...
making travel extremely difficult and sometimes nearly impossible.
This is home to some pretty unpleasant creatures.
Scorpions and centipedes, spiders and snakes.
The rhinoceros viper has a venom so powerful it can kill you in minutes.
Plus of course the usual array of nasty bugs...
like filaria flies and mosquitoes.
There are times when the Congo does seem like Africa's Dark Heart.
Here, with the help of some astonishing trackers...
Magdalena Bermejo has spent 6 years following several gorilla families...
on foot through the undergrowth, along with her partner German.
The dense jungle's littered with signals...
which help them track the gorillas.
A half-chewed brown fruit is a vital clue.
-It's gone brown? -Yes, this is a fruit...
that was thrown down quickly, 2 hours, something like that.
So we're at least two hours behind them then, are we?
Zepherin leads the way. He used to be a skilled hunter.
Can he use his expertise...
to get me close to the gorillas with the camera?
One step at a time, in complete silence...
we creep through the Marantaceae stems.
Finally, I get my first glimpse.
It's exciting, but they're still far off in the trees.
It'll take another half an hour to cut a path closer to them.
Magda's patience is astonishing.
She snips her way gently...
aware that the slightest noise may disrupt the gorillas.
And, over the years, her patience has been rewarded.
I too am within filming distance of lowland gorillas in the forest.
Apollo's group have stopped at a Dyalium tree, in full fruit.
The dominant adults stay near the centre...
where strong branches easily support their weight.
Meanwhile the lower ranking gorillas have to risk venturing...
onto the thinner outer branches to find their food.
The gorillas seem to know every fruiting tree in their patch.
They make regular tours to check how each one is progressing.
Apollo the silverback has found a wild mango tree.
A prized fruit for many apes.
It's now clear why gorillas spend much more time here in the forest...
than out in the bais.
This bounty of forest fruits and nuts is far more nutritious...
than the weight-watcher's salad out in the swampy meadows.
Wild figs are a favourite: the ripest ones are the reddest.
Gorillas' huge stomachs are the result of this bulky forest diet.
And gorilla flatulence is not unheard of...
German has been documenting their research...
with his own footage shot over five patient years.
He's filmed some new and remarkable gorilla behaviours.
He's filmed gorillas eating wood, which has never before been seen.
Wood is composed almost entirely of cellulose...
which can only be digested once it starts rotting.
And it's also probably riddled with termites...
which gorillas certainly enjoy eating.
One day German witnessed some really astounding behaviour.
This female couldn't reach the tasty wood high up on the trunk...
she's rolled over a log nearby, and used it as a platform...
so she could reach her meal.
It seemed so easy, so natural...
yet tool use like this has never before been seen among gorillas.
The more we're finding out about them...
the more sophisticated and intelligent they appear to be.
As the heat of the day builds up...
the humidity soars and life in the forest becomes really steamy.
It's easy for the gorillas. They climb higher...
and find a breeze blowing through the branches...
but down on the ground sweat bees become a real nuisance.
They're tiny things and luckily, they don't sting.
But they can still drive you mad.
It used to be thought gorillas didn't climb trees at all.
Well, they do climb, and they also build nests...
snapping leafy branches and folding them inwards to make a soft mattress.
The importance of learning is obvious...
from these first bungling attempts by the youngsters.
They'll have to watch and practise more...
to sleep soundly on beds like these.
While they sleep, I suffer.
There were moments when I wondered why I'd agreed to do this!
Time to give it a rest for the day.
Most days seemed to bring a storm.
Sometimes the most deafening thunder...
the most violent lightning I've ever encountered.
The gorillas would cower from the onslaught...
sheltering amongst foliage on the ground. We did the same.
The film gear was suffering...
one of the lenses had fungus growing on it.
Everything we owned seemed permanently damp.
After heavy rain the trail goes cold...
the gorillas could be anywhere.
Zepherin tracks down last night's nesting site to look for clues.
Marantaceae leaves and stems make soft beds.
Magda counts them all up: there are 16 members of Apollo's family.
Zepherin can sometimes tell which bed belongs to which gorilla.
This long white hair could only come from the silverback Apollo.
The silverback is the only gorilla that has white hair.
But which way did he go?
By now I was getting better at tracking myself...
the unmistakable knuckle prints of a gorilla.
They're up ahead, on the move through the fruiting trees.
Gorilla's have been stripping the bark from this tree-trunk.
Gorilla.
Finally we catch up with them, just as they're coming down to ground level.
Gorillas are big animals: an adult female is 80 or 90 kilos.
An adult male can be over 150 kilos.
Clambering about in the treetops is a perilous business.
Magda's noticed that it's usually the thinner branches and vines...
they use for climbing, they can grasp them more easily...
but they make sure of their footing with 3 of 4 limbs before moving on.
But mistakes are made, youngsters sometimes falter...
and it isn't always an elegant affair...
The gorillas follow set routes up and down a tree.
They climb down in a set order...
perhaps reflecting rank or even safety...
making sure they don't jump the queue or land on someone's head.
They certainly make it look deceptively easy.
I admit that crawling on hands and knees...
with a huge silverback metres away, certainly keeps you alert.
And it's not just gorillas.
There's no shortage of beasties lurking in the undergrowth...
all with teeth or stings.
Magda's brought us both to within just a couple of metres of the gorillas.
Over six years they've learned to recognise and trust Magda.
For the first time...
lowland gorillas have accepted a human among them.
And this has led Magda to question some old wisdom.
It was thought that chest-beating was simply a sign of aggression.
But Magda thinks chest-beats have a whole range of meanings...
from a simple greeting, "Hi!", to a questioning contact call...
"Where are you?", and maybe even more.
She marks out a rhythm of beats to the female Aphrodite...
and Aphrodite seems to reply in kind.
Is this some simple form of hand-beat language?
Magda's convinced these creatures are capable of subtleties...
we've not yet noticed, let alone understood.
Far from being huge brutes thundering and strutting...
their way through the forest, these are subtle and intimate creatures.
One day I filmed a touching scene between two females.
The younger one was obviously trying...
to befriend her older sister with such intimate and caring gestures.
I had no idea gorillas could be so gentle.
As my time at Lossi drew to an end I began to feel...
that I too had taken a step closer to these gorillas.
Was young Orpheo saying hello to me? I imagined he was.
But sadly it was my time to say goodbye.
My precious two years on the trail of these magical animals...
was coming to an end.
Not King Kong. Not an angry ape at all...
but more the gentle gorilla.
Maybe we ought to hope...
we are more like these sensitive creatures rather than less.
Perhaps then there would be more hope for us.
We might even start to treat these close relations of ours...
with the love and respect they deserve.
The Congo turns out to be a treasure chest...
a vast wilderness that's still home to a remarkable array...
and abundance of wildlife.
There are tens of thousands of gorillas...
living in the newly discovered sanctuaries of Odzala...
Ndoki and Lossi.
King Kong's cousins live on.