newhome

Closeup Koko

Koko may have a larger home soon.

For almost 30 years, as A CONVERSATION WITH KOKO shows, Dr. Francine "Penny" Patterson and her colleagues have learned a great deal about gorilla behavior and communication by observing their trio of apes at a 7-acre research facility in a California redwood forest. Today, however, the gorillas may have outgrown their home, and Patterson hopes to move them to more spacious quarters.

"It's long been one of our goals to put the gorillas in a place that is more like their native African habitat," says Kevin Connelly of the Gorilla Foundation, which cares for Koko and raises funds for Patterson's research. Koko, he notes, is a western lowland gorilla, one of the three types of endangered gorillas found in central Africa. The rarest, the mountain gorilla, is not kept in captivity and numbers fewer than 600 in the wild. In contrast, there are about 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas still in the wild, and perhaps as many as 80,000 western lowland gorillas, though both species face serious threats from habitat loss and hunting. Western lowland gorillas are by far the most common gorillas found in captivity: they account for more than 98% of the approximately 700 gorillas in zoos and research programs around the world.

Like Koko, however, captive gorillas rarely find themselves in surroundings similar to the lush forests and The gorillas may have outgrown their California home. river valleys of their native land. And they may not have as many companions in captivity as they might in the wild, where gorillas often live in highly social groups of a dozen or more animals. As a result, captive animals like Koko may not behave like their wild cousins. For instance, they may not get the social support and teaching they need to begin breeding.

In an effort to get around those problems, Patterson began looking for a better home for Koko. The Gorilla Foundation realized a major step toward that goal in 1993, when Mary Cameron Sanford and the Maui Land and Pineapple Company made available 70 acres of land in the western part of the Hawaiian island of Maui, where "the climate is much more suitable," says Connelly. "We will develop a large, secluded sanctuary on the 70 acres. The gorilla families will roam freely within as spacious enclosures as we can construct --spending their days socializing, napping in the sun, playing, foraging through edible vegetation, communicating, reproducing, and raising their children. Also, our preserve can serve as a resource for the zoo gorilla and conservation community, providing needed space and a place for more natural socialization and breeding opportunities." Assuming the project moves forward -- and preliminary work has already been completed -- the $12 million facility will be "the largest gorilla habitat sanctuary in the world," he says. However, the project cannot go forward until the money needed to complete the preserve has been raised.

Currently, cramped conditions and noise from nearby roads can make social interactions among the gorillas difficult. At the new facility, however, "the design should give the gorillas plenty of places to play and just be gorillas," Connelly says. In that spirit, the new compound will be closed to visitors, just like the current facility. But the Foundation hopes to have a visitor's center to accommodate Koko's many fans -- and possibly even two-way video system that would allow gorilla and human to observe one another.

Bachelor

The refuge could house "bachelor males."

If all goes well, and Koko does have a baby, Patterson's research would enter another exciting phase. In particular, she is interested in finding out whether Koko will teach her infant to sign. If she does, it would be an example of passing along complex learned behavior that many researchers once believed only humans could accomplish.

Even if Koko never reproduces, however, the refuge will still be important, Connelly says. It could, for instance, help house young, captive "bachelor males" who typically spend some time on their own before joining a social group, helping make captive populations healthier. And it will be part of the international network of conservation centers working to remind people of the importance of protecting free-living gorilla populations. While captive gorillas are important for research and education, Connelly notes that "the best thing to have is happy and healthy wild populations in Africa."

A Conversation With Koko Home

PBS Online | wNetStation