The talkative primate appears in a new video. Image Credit: YouTube / The Gorilla Foundation
A gorilla who can speak sign language has appeared in a new video to raise awareness for climate change.
Arguably the best known member of her species in the world, Koko is a female western lowland gorilla who over the last 44 years has shown just how similar humans are to our primate cousins.
Koko is able to communicate using sign language and can understand over 2,000 words of spoken English. Trained from a young age by Francine "Penny" Patterson, Koko's communication skills are only equivalent to that of a human child but are still nonetheless highly impressive for an ape.
Now in a renewed bid to raise awareness for global warming the talkative gorilla has appeared in a new video in which she uses her signing abilities to speak out about the state of the planet.
"Man Koko love, Earth Koko love. But man stupid," she said. "Fix Earth! Help Earth! Protect Earth."
The footage was shown at the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris last month.
"Because of her unique ability to communicate with humans in sign language, Koko is a natural ambassador for endangered species," The Gorilla Foundation wrote in a statement.
Well an avalanche of criticism, you just love to do that here, ain't gonna miss that. Koko's right though, it's not like we made the planet any better for the rest of life here, a lot worse. She might as well know but I doubt it. Words seem meaningless with this issue anyhow, like all issues. Exemplary action is better.
She's only right because she was instructed to say it by her Keepers. She didn't come up with the idea all by herself, is the reason people are a little cyncial.
I try not to discriminate between male and female when it comes to apes. If Koko calls me stupid, she will be signing "Man punch punch punch gorilla. Need hospital."
@acute (post 54), You may be a big guy, you may be a small guy, I do not know but I can assure you , if you tried to punch Koko, she would have you for breakfast!
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