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| A Friendship Blossoms |
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Today, Patterson and the 28-year-old Koko continue to redefine the
gorilla's image -- and our own. Koko has learned more than 1,000 words.
And Patterson has encouraged another little-known gorilla ability: art.
Koko and a younger male gorilla who lives with her, Michael, appear
to create paintings inspired by their daily experiences at their research
facility in California. For instance, Michael painted a black-and-white
canvas of his dog.
Koko has formed emotional attachments to kittens. |
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The creative urge isn't the only thing that gorillas may share with humans.
Patterson and her colleagues -- who carefully document the gorillas' daily
behavior and use of signs in an effort to understand how they communicate
-- have also shown that gorillas experience a range of emotions. There
was joy, for instance, in the attachment that Koko formed with a small
gray and white tabby kitten, and grief when the kitten was killed in an
accident. And there seems to be longing, too, as Koko has expressed a
wistful interest in having a baby of her own.
So far, however, efforts to set the 5-foot-tall, 300-pound Koko up
with an eligible bachelor have failed. The first suitor, Michael, has
become more like a brother. Another male, picked through an extraordinary
form of video-dating that allowed Koko to look over her options and
make a choice, has yet to become a love interest. That may be because
Koko's current living arrangement, set on a 7-acre plot in a cool, rainy
redwood forest, doesn't allow for the kind of courting that occurs in
larger groups of wild gorillas. But some help may be on the way: Patterson
would like to move Koko and the two males to a 70-acre
refuge on the Hawaiian island of Maui on land donated by the Maui
Land and Pineapple Company, where the vegetation and weather is more
like her African homeland.
But for the moment, Koko remains in northern California, continuing
to amaze those who have come to know her, whether in person or through
books, films, and news stories. Using her hands and her eyes, Koko has
taught us that we should never underestimate the remarkable creatures
who share our world. And her story reminds us that friendships can often
bridge seemingly vast gaps, such as the one between a young student
and a toddling gorilla.
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