Koko, the gorilla famous for having learned American Sign Language, has died. Born in the San Francisco Zoo in 1971 and moved to the newly founded Gorilla Foundation a few years later, she spent nearly a half-century subjected to the whims and wishes of humans. She knew that she wasn’t where she was meant to be. She often signed the word “baby,” carried gorilla dolls in her arms and gently caressed her companion kittens. In the wild, she likely would have given birth to several babies, nurturing and protecting them and teaching them how to be part of an extended family. Her intelligence and sensitivity taught humans a lesson about otherness.
King Kong is fiction: Gorillas are quiet, peaceful and nonaggressive. They enjoy highly social multifaceted relationships, and their lives revolve around their families. They grieve and have been documented holding wakes for lost loved ones. In captivity, everything that they’re meant to be and do is lost. It’s little wonder that some zoos have resorted to giving them antidepressants.
Of course, Koko is only one of many animals who have desperately tried to get humans to understand what they want and need. There was chimpanzee Washoe, who signed to researchers “You me go out hurry.” And bonobo Kanzi, who, when asked by his caretakers if he was ready to do something, was known to reply, “Past ready.”
Animals need not be taught ASL – they have their own languages.
Dolphins not only communicate in complete sentences but, unlike your interrupting uncle, they patiently wait until another completes a thought before joining the conversation. Elephants issue warnings and share information across the miles using very low-frequency “infrasounds” with pitches below the range of human hearing.