>Koko
Why is she given kittens and not the opportunity to raise her own gorilla babies?
Seems like the ultimate pay-off of the project would be to see if Koko could pass on her sign language to the offsprings, but instead all progress will die with her
Stupid-ass scientists keeping the gorillas down
>>2080078
Those people working with them do tend to be a bit sketchy. I can't trust them fully. It's a pity, because I would love to.
According to reliable sources (such as The X-Files), mating gorillas in captivity is a lot more complicated and difficult than you would think
>>2080079
This. Even though I'm convinced that all great apes are essentially similar to us, those working with Koko seem to be anthroporphising her quite a bit, at least when approach the public. Especially when they claim that she got sad from watching some old movie.
Still, she seems like a pretty cool girl.
>tfw no qt gorilla to tickle and playfight with
>Why is she given kittens and not the opportunity to raise her own gorilla babies?
Did you even READ Koko's Kitten? She got kittens because that's what she asked for.
>>2080086
>Koko remembered Robin Williams
http://www.koko.org/koko-tribute-robin-williams
>>2080078
i named my cat all ball. koko is a fucking baller.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9I_QvEXDv0
They have tried getting her a few mates but they just don't hit it off.
They even had a dating video type thing set up for her, videos of a couple of male gorillas and she picked out the one she liked most.
>>2080078
Maybe she's too old? She's probably not infertile but if we're comparing her to a human, people around 40-ish have a really high chance of having birth defects in their children of they decide to procreate that late.
>>2080078
>>2080405
>>2080429
>>2080432
Gorillas live in groups. They tried pairing her with male gorillas(like Michael) but gorilla breeding isn't just putting a male and female together. The females need other females AND a silverback to be comfortable enough to raise offspring. They have a structure, and whether or not a female is ready to mate can also largely depend on whether or not any other females are ready to mate.
Koko needs to be in a group, but whether or not she can be integrated into one at this point seems grim.The shit that has been going on with Koko is sketchy as fuck.
Koko doesn't actually know sign language. It's 99% fabrication.
>>2080433
Also, here's a video of her showing her feelings about climate change, for fucks sake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVuNTiqHys0
>The Gorilla Foundation, which looks after Koko, explained the creation of the video: "Koko was clear about the man message: Man is harming the Earth and its many animal and plant species and needs to 'hurry' and fix the problem."
They aren't doing anything with Koko other than parading her around and raking in cash.
>>2080439
koko seems bit autistic
>>2080439
What the fuck. They just took individual cuts of each sign and ordered them the way they wanted to. Are the subtitles even correct i wonder.
Most of the primatological community will agree Koko is widely overhyped and not as impressive as most people think she is.
Kanzi is where it's at.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhc2zePJFE
>>2080412
>In the above video, notice that Robin made Koko smile — something she hadn’t done for over 6 months, ever since her lifelong gorilla companion, Michael, passed away at the age of 27.
>>2080439
>there are people who actually believe that non-human animals consider themselves "part of nature"
Maybe Koko doesn't want offspring. Is it possible for gorillas to be antisocial?
>>2081549
She's fat, and old. Her caretakers fed her processed shit and sweets.
>At the Gorilla Foundation, many employees’ letters of resignation focused heavily on the issue of the apes’ health. According to former caregivers, Koko was overweight. “All the caregivers would talk about Koko’s weight,” Sarah, a caregiver who resigned a few years ago, told me. (Sarah is a pseudonym; she did not want her real name published because she signed a nondisclosure agreement when she was hired at the Gorilla Foundation.) “We always tried to get her to exercise, but she would never go outside — she just wanted to sit in her little trailer and watch TV or sleep.”
>>2081553
>Sarah was hired in 2011 as a “food preparation specialist” to arrange for Koko’s meals. Given what she knew about gorilla diets from her training as an anthropologist, she was surprised that she was expected to prepare gourmet meals. Soon after she started her job at the Gorilla Foundation, Sarah cooked a Thanksgiving meal for Koko that was also eaten by humans, which concerned her. The Gorilla Foundation says that it does “celebrate the holidays by providing special meals that feature some of the same foods that the caregivers enjoyed.”
“Koko was extremely picky,” Sarah said, and she thinks this was because Koko was often fed delectable human treats, including processed meats. “She would always eat the meat first when she should have been eating plain — not seasoned or salted — vegetables and other greens.” Sarah says that the foods on the diet checklist at the Gorilla Foundation were reasonable and that caregivers tried to stick to those healthy meal plans, even carefully weighing the food to make sure it wasn’t too much. But then, she says, Patterson would visit with Koko and bring in treats. “She would go in with treats like chocolate or meats, and we had no control over it because she would feed it directly to her,” Sarah says.
