As the documentary explains, after Patterson published her dissertation in 1979, behavioral scientists expressed skepticism of her language claims (Koko is now said to understand 2,000 words of spoken English and knows 1,000 signs). (“I understand her favorite movie is ‘Tea With Mussolini,’ ” Appleby says, referring to the 1999 drama starring Cher and Judi Dench as women who raise a young boy in 1930s fascist Italy.)īut not everyone was so impressed with the human-like Koko. She can even select her own films to watch. She spawned the children’s book “Koko’s Kitten” and her own branded line of toys, and over the years she’s met celebrities such as William Shatner, Sting and Leonardo DiCaprio. Koko would go on to achieve global fame in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when National Geographic put her on its cover twice, including an image of her mourning the death of her pet kitten, which made headlines worldwide. When the zoo demanded the five-year-old primate back for breeding two years later, Patterson, fearing Koko would be rejected by the other gorillas after being reared by humans, raised $12,500 to officially adopt her and agreed to find a male gorilla to mate with her. ![]() Courtesy of The Gorilla Foundation/įor the first two years of the study, Patterson tutored the gorilla at the San Francisco Zoo, then in 1974 she got permission to move Koko with her to Stanford. Ron Cohn, Koko & Penny Patterson inside Koko’s trailer. ![]() “Right from the beginning Penny has given Koko birthday parties very similar to the birthdays you would give a child, and I think that reflects Koko and Penny’s relationship: that Koko is like a child to Penny,” says Bridget Appleby, a producer at BBC’s Natural History Unit.Īppleby was part of a three-person crew that spent a month in Woodside in June 2015 filming the gorilla and her adopted mother and combing the 2,000 hours of archival footage collected over 44 years of their sign-language experiment, known as Project Koko. Today, Patterson is still serving as the gorilla’s primary caregiver and their remarkable bond is the subject of the one-hour documentary “Koko: The Gorilla Who Talks,” premiering Aug. project, which made Koko famous around the world for her ability to “talk.” But over the course of 45 years, what started as a scientific experiment has evolved into an unconventional family arrangement in which love and commitment mix with controversy and regret. The following year she began teaching sign language to the baby gorilla as part of her Ph.D. Patterson, 69, first met Koko at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971, when she was a 24-year-old graduate student at Stanford University. There are the usual markings of such an occasion - wrapped presents, a cake with candles, the singing of “Happy Birthday To You.” Except here, the annual guest of honor is a nearly 300-pound Western lowland gorilla named Koko. Toronto Zoo urges visitors to quit showing 'upsetting' cell phone videos to gorillasĭC zoo 'cautiously optimistic' critically endangered gorilla newborn will surviveĮvery year on July 4, Penny Patterson throws a birthday party near her Woodside, Calif., home. ![]() Gorilla believed to be a boy gives birth at Ohio zoo Inside the 'Tarzan Movement': Defy modern life by embracing your inner gorilla
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |