But an amazing Gorilla who mastered Sign Language. died at 46. She also showed the world that Gorilla's aren't just big dumb brutes, and she owned several cats as pets.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Koko is perhaps the most famous product of an ambitious field of research, one that sought from the outset to examine whether apes and humans could communicate. In dozens of studies, scientists raised apes with humans and attempted to teach them language. Dedicated researchers brought apes like Koko into their homes or turned their labs into home-like environments where people and apes could play together and try, often awkwardly, to understand each other. The researchers made these apes the center of their lives.
But the research didn’t deliver on its promise. No new studies have been launched in years, and the old ones are fizzling out. A behind-the-scenes look at what remains of this research today reveals a surprisingly dramatic world of lawsuits, mass resignations, and dysfunctional relationships between humans and apes. Employees at these famed research organizations have mostly kept quiet over the years, fearing retaliation from the organizations or lawsuits for violating nondisclosure agreements. But some are now willing to speak out, and their stories offer a troubling window onto the world of talking apes.
Criticisms of ape language studies wore down researchers, and projects fizzled out as the humans in charge lost interest in defending their research, being full-time ape parents, and securing ever-more elusive funding to continue the projects. Even as the research ended, though, the apes remained
Celebrity Death Koko the Gorilla
