On July 4, 1971, in San Franciso Zoo, Koko named a gorilla born that was the first ever gorilla that was able to talk by using sign language, isn’t it surprising?
Well, Koko by gender was a female, and biologically her mother was Jacqueline and her father was Bwana. One more interesting thing is that Koko was the 50th gorilla born in captivity and Koko was one of the first Gorillas that was accepted by her mother in Captivity.
Let me help you with the term “Captivity” It simply means that he was born in a Zoo environment. A place where people take care of animals, and look after them.
A bit about her name, her original first name was “Hanabi-ko” which originated from the Japanese language. Its lit translation means fireworks child (literal translation or word-by-word translation). As she was born fourth of July that’s special. It reminds people about fireworks on the fourth of July a day when most often fireworks are seen in the US because it’s America’s Independence Day!
However, later it changed into the Koko gorilla that’s what everyone knows nowadays. And Koko’s name was given by Dr. Patterson, we will talk about her a bit later.
Koko was a kind of special gorilla that was called the “western lowland gorilla” These types of gorillas are “endangered” at the highest risk of disappearing from the land. Because they are losing their homes, they are being hunted by people.
Moving back, when Koko was a year old, she got very sick and was sent to the hospital where she was introduced or met to Dr. Francine Patterson. Dr. Pattern made up her mind to teach her sign language as it was her part of research and at that time Dr.Patterson was studying at Standford University.
Brief introduction about Dr. Francine Patterson as now – Simpy We say she is known as An American animal psychologist she is best known for teaching a modified form of American sign language, as she calls “gorilla sign language “GSL.
So GSL “Gorilla Sign Language” let’s learn a bit about it.
Well, Dr.Patterson and her team developed a modified version of American sign language this is what I came up with above earlier “Gorilla Sign Language or GSL”
They especially modified this sign language to be able to teach or communicate with Koko. they tried to teach over 1,000 signs that were related to expressing our feelings, thoughts, and desires.
Fortunately, Koko was able to comprehend about 2,000 spoken English words which was one of the smartest animals who could understand human language ever studied.
Koko became famous because she was intelligent, funny, curious, creative, and had lots of feelings like us. She was that much better as was able to paint, play with toys such as dolls, read, or take a look at magazines, and movies.
Koko loved cats later she had some kittens as her pets whom with she played and she used her sign language to give names such as “All Ball, “Lipstick, and Smoky. She felt her cats like her own babies given hearty love and she was very disappointed when they had gone or left.
Koko had some close friends who looked after her, we say especially Dr. Paterson. That was kind of like a mother to her. Koko was also met with celebrities who visited her, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Mr. Rogers, Robin Williams, and Betty White.
Koko died in her sleep on June 19, 2018, at the age of 46. At the time she was living at the Gorilla Foundation’s preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, the US. Koko’s life and her process of learning were written down in books and articles and available in some documentaries. As we know she had a website and social media account where she used to share her artwork with our world.
Somehow, Koko inspired people and made them care about Gorillas and other animals in danger. Of course, she made us think and care about them.
Millions of people loved her and still, somewhere people remember them especially those who cared and looked after her. It was a great inspiration.
