 |
News
Project Koko celebrates 25 years
 On July 12, 1997, Koko celebrated a milestone anniversary. The world famous kitten-loving gorilla, born July 4, 1971, has been communicating with humans through the use of sign language for more than 25 years. A generation of children who read about Koko in elementary school are now adults sharing Koko's story with their own children.
On the foggy Wednesday morning of July 12, 1972, Francine "Penny" Patterson first met Koko, a 20-pound female lowland gorilla who had just turned one year old. Patterson was then a graduate student at Stanford University and Koko was a resident of the San Francisco Zoo nursery. Their meeting marked the beginning of a unique interspecies communication project that is still going strong a quarter of a century later.
"I originally expected to work with Koko for only 4 or 5 years, as long as some other ape language studies had lasted," says Dr. Patterson today. "But I quickly realized that my commitment to Koko would be for life."
In 1972, no one knew whether or not a gorilla could learn to communicate using a human language. But Koko's achievements with American Sign Language (ASL) exceeded all expectations. She produced her first recognizable signs within a few weeks. Within six months she was combining signs, asking questions, inventing gestures, spontaneously naming objects, and talking to herself.
Patterson's work with Koko earned her National Geographic Society grants, the Rolex Award for Enterprise, the Preservation of the Animals World Society Award for Outstanding Professional Service, as well as seven awards for the book and video versions of Koko's Kitten. In 1978 and 1985, National Geographic articles about Koko featured photographs by Dr. Ronald H. Cohn, who has documented the project on film and videotape since that first day in 1972.
Over the years Koko's remarkable facility with language and her gentle love of kittens has captured the hearts and imaginations of the public and has inspired millions of school children to read, write letters, and to learn more about gorillas and other endangered animals. Today, Dr. Patterson hopes that Koko's special appeal will also help change people's attitudes toward gorillas in those African countries where an alarming increase in commercialized hunting of gorillas for "bushmeat" poses a very serious threat to the species' survival.
|
