Many years ago I learned of Dr. Francine “Penny” Patterson and the female baby gorilla, Koko, with whom she was working in order to teach Koko sign language, and with that skill set, give her the ability to communicate with humans. My deepest beliefs have always been that all animals know more than humans give them credit for knowing. I have always known that certain animals and birds are exceedingly intelligent, think, feel, suffer, and deserve far more respect and honor than that afforded them to date. Dr. Patterson was at the forefront of discovering the incredible abilities, hearts and minds of non-human animals. My heart was full with the possibility of inter-species communication with primates, dolphins and parrots. It was a start, long overdue, but the gorilla door had opened a crack.
Through the years I followed what I could find to learn more about this profoundly fascinating study of teaching a gorilla American Sign Language. During those years there were two National Geographic covers featuring Koko. I know you remember the one of her holding a camera in front of her face and making a photo of herself in the mirror (1978). She got cover credit as photographer. Being a photographer I was jealous. :) Her second National Geographic cover (1985) featured her and All-Ball, a gray tail-less kitten that she loved and mourned when it was hit by a car on a mountain road. (Koko’s empathetic relationship with All-Ball changed the existing fearful paradigm about gorillas forever). If you have one or both of those covers, the Foundation would be pleased to liberate it/them from your home. But I digress.
The study continues to this day and has proven to be even more astonishing than anyone would have imagined. Except me and others like me... I'm not astonished, I'm thrilled! Recently I had the supremely good fortune to speak with Gary Stanley, Director of Educational Technology at The Gorilla Foundation / Koko.org (Koko’s home). It was like following the thin trail of Alex for so many years and one day meeting his scientist mom, Irene Pepperberg and eventually becoming good friends and traveling companions.
Here I was speaking to someone intimately involved with the care and welfare of Koko. Washoe, a chimpanzee was the other most important primate to learn sign language, but sadly she ended up in the care of William Lemmon, who was harshly abusive to animals under his care, disciplining them with cattle prods and shooting them with pellet guns (after which he would dig the pellets out with a knife). The most important work being done in inter-species communication... and I was now talking to someone involved with (and working for) Koko. Very cool.
In our talk, Gary spoke about the wish list for the gorillas http://www.koko.org/wishlist and the remarkable program called KokoZEST, that he has developed for use by primate caregivers to enrich the lives entrusted to their care. The following is brief excerpt from the article about ZEST (Zoo Enrichment Signing Technology): http://www.koko.org/news/news_080828_Wel_KokoZEST.html I encourage you to read the entire article.
“Gorillas and other great apes in captive environments deserve our most sensitive care — both because they exhibit a high level of emotional and intellectual awareness, and because they face an increasing threat of extinction in the wild.
Zoological institutions recognize this, and hold themselves to elevated standards of care and management for great apes. They have developed sophisticated behavioral enrichment techniques to mitigate stress and provide physically and mentally stimulating environments, and employ training techniques such as operant conditioning to ameliorate potentially difficult medical matters and to introduce preventative health and wellness routines.
Ground-breaking developments in great ape behavioral enrichment and training are thus of the utmost interest to great ape management teams, because they can lead to enhanced health, greater contentment and increased reproduction of endangered gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans.”
Another excerpt:
“During the past 35 years, working with gorillas Koko, Michael and Ndume, we have found that the two-way communication afforded by teaching even "basic" signs to gorillas significantly improves the ability to care for them. And others who have taught sign language to chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, have had similar experiences (see, eg, Fouts, Savage-Rumbaugh and Miles).
The most notable benefit of ZEST in a zoological setting is the aid to medical evaluation and care. By developing a pathway to convey simple yet important bits of information regarding health and welfare issues (diet, illness, pain, etc.), zoo keepers and medical personnel can work more effectively toward the highest level of care for great apes in captivity.”
“The Gorilla Foundation is constructing a unique and critically important gorilla preserve in Maui. The Maui Ape Preserve will provide a natural environment for Koko and other gorillas, and is a vital step toward saving the species from imminent extinction.”
This gives us but a peek at what is happening at the Gorilla Foundation; not only the continued mutual growth and education between caregivers, Koko and Ndume, but the promise of a preserve, the hope for conservation of gorillas in the wild (so humans will stop eating them), but also the opportunity for primate caregivers to learn and use the ZEST too so that all primates may thrive in captivity. Imagine how they suffer, unable to communicate the most basic need.
There is so much more to share about Koko — including her quest to have and teach a family of her own — and I will...
Maybe there is a glimmer of hope for humans to stop abusing and 'be still my beating heart', start honoring animals...
We will see...
