Every year on July 4, Penny Patterson throws a birthday party near her Woodside, Calif., home. 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. Patterson, 69, first met Koko at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971, when she was a 24-year-old graduate student at Stanford University. The following year she began teaching sign language to the baby gorilla as part of her Ph.D. 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. 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,”...
Comments