On October 30, Washoe, the first non-human to learn and communicate in a human language, passed away at 42 from influenza.  While chimpanzees die every day without much media attention, Washoe's death prompted a small flurry of news reports because she was the first animal to reliably prove that other species not only had sentience but also complex emotional lives.  Her human companions and protectors, Roger and Debbi Fouts, documented her growth as a rambunctious, strong-willed, and empathetic individual who was capable of compassion, humor, abstract reasoning, loyalty, and even deceit.  While she never displayed the kind of higher level thinking we associate with human adults, she was still able to outsmart her human friends from time to time.  More importantly, she taught us something essential about our place in the natural world:  that chimpanzees were more like humans than we had ever imagined.

Washoe had her detractors, people who could not, or did not want to, believe that a chimpanzee could learn American Sign Language (ASL) and use it in the flexible way deaf humans do.  I find it difficult to believe that anyone who read Roger Fouts' Next of Kin, an account of his life with her, could believe otherwise.  When a group of deaf adults were able to understand ninety percent of Washoe's and her family's ASL signs, one could not deny that she had truly mastered the language.  When videotapes taken outside the presence of humans showed that Washoe and her family communicated readily even when alone, people were forced to admit that communication was an integral part of chimpanzee life.  When Washoe taught her adopted son Loulis ASL, making him the first non-human to be taught a human language by another non-human, we as a species could no longer claim that our ability to pass along our native tongue was a uniquely human trait.

Despite her influence in the field of primatology and animal behavior, Washoe was unique only in that she was an individual who, through a series of unlikely circumstances, ended up in a study designed to teach her ASL.  Any of the approximately 1,200 chimpanzees still used in biomedical and other testing environments could have bridged the gap between non-human and human primates but instead find themselves locked in cages, injected with infectious or toxic materials, and studied in the cold, emotionless atmosphere of a laboratory.  The chimps we see in zoos could, if they had been taught, tell us how they feel about their limited environments.  In Africa, where they are a threatened species, they could express their grief as losing loved ones to poachers or anger at having their territory encroached upon.  But they don't.  Therefore, we are able to distance ourselves somewhat from their plight.  We should ask ourselves this, however:  Should we admire and love Washoe without extending the same kindness to her species?  To other animals?  What kind of rights and lives should thinking, sentient beings be given?

Washoe, with her playful, intelligent engagement, demonstrated the need for us to ask these difficult questions and to answer them truthfully. Her presence among us caused us to reevaluate our perceived superiority, yet we have failed to take the next step to legislate against all experimental uses of non-human primates.   Unfortunately,  because animal rights activism has become synonymous for many with eco-terrorism, the more politically moderate hesitate to speak up.  We must not forget that, at its most elemental, the issue of animal rights is about compassion and respect.  As the most intelligent species currently living on this planet, we owe it to all other sentient species to move through the world in a responsible, ethical manner, without selfishness or a sense of entitlement.  Let Washoe live both in our hearts and our minds so that we act to lessen the suffering of non-human primates, both captive and wild.

Copyright 2007 by Debbie Lee Wesselmann