1 00:00:56,049 --> 00:02:00,959 A chimpanzee infant left with his mother is a thing, a lump, taken away he acquires human 2 00:02:00,959 --> 00:02:06,040 psychological tests, performances which are well not unbelievable. 3 00:02:06,040 --> 00:02:23,969 Nim was born at the primate center in Oklahoma and I went out there to get him. 4 00:02:23,969 --> 00:02:31,310 I had never been near that many chimpanzees, it was frightening and intimidating. 5 00:02:31,310 --> 00:02:37,550 And I knew Dr. Lemon and his wife were watching me to see what kind of a mother would I be. 6 00:02:37,550 --> 00:02:47,490 Carolyn, Nim's mother, was sitting right there holding Nim. 7 00:02:47,490 --> 00:02:50,389 And she knew what was going to happen better than I did. 8 00:02:50,389 --> 00:03:04,319 She had had six of her previous babies removed, apparently, in the same way. 9 00:03:04,319 --> 00:03:15,360 When the time came to take Nim from his mother, she instantly took on this drama, this feeling 10 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:18,280 of something about to happen. 11 00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:32,419 And Dr. Lemon shot her with a tranquilizing gun and then said, quick, we have to get him 12 00:03:32,419 --> 00:03:35,379 before she falls over and falls on him. 13 00:03:37,199 --> 00:03:39,879 She was trying to protect him and cradle him. 14 00:03:41,599 --> 00:03:43,460 So he raised him and got Nym 15 00:03:43,460 --> 00:03:48,099 and handed Nym to me 16 00:03:48,099 --> 00:03:53,699 and said, go back, you know, go back in the other space. 17 00:04:04,469 --> 00:04:07,650 He was very dense, 18 00:04:07,650 --> 00:04:18,329 unlike a human baby that has fat he was dense and hard he didn't struggle he didn't try to 19 00:04:18,329 --> 00:04:27,449 get away he just screamed as much as he may be screaming and protesting he's also clinging he 20 00:04:27,449 --> 00:04:59,620 was attaching for dear life wouldn't it be exciting to communicate with the chimp and 21 00:04:59,620 --> 00:05:07,420 find out what it was thinking if they could be taught to articulate what they 22 00:05:07,420 --> 00:05:12,459 were thinking about this would be an incredible expansion of human 23 00:05:12,459 --> 00:05:18,319 communication and possibly give us some insight into how language in fact did 24 00:05:18,319 --> 00:05:27,560 evolve and that's essentially why I started project them I don't know what 25 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:34,639 was in his mind but he just called he was asking me to bring an infant 26 00:05:34,639 --> 00:05:43,160 chimpanzee into my home raise this infant as if he were a child and see if 27 00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:48,879 he acquire language as a function of being part of a family 28 00:05:48,879 --> 00:05:55,459 Stephanie was a former student of mine she had a large family of her own 29 00:05:55,459 --> 00:06:02,220 children and her husband's children was exceedingly empathic and warm and a chimp could not have 30 00:06:02,220 --> 00:06:03,220 a better mother. 31 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:14,800 I know nothing about chimpanzees and I never actually sat down to study them as one could 32 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:21,240 have, as I should have perhaps, but my appetite and my drive to have that intimate relationship 33 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,839 with an animal was, nothing would have stopped that. 34 00:06:25,459 --> 00:06:30,379 The fact that we could share language with an animal 35 00:06:30,379 --> 00:06:34,040 seemed like a very radical possibility at that time. 36 00:06:35,180 --> 00:06:36,980 It had been known for some time 37 00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:40,759 that chimps aren't able to make the sounds of human language. 38 00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:41,480 Do this, Sticky. 39 00:06:43,660 --> 00:06:45,939 So why not teach them sign language? 40 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:52,339 The real breakthrough would be if, like human children, 41 00:06:52,339 --> 00:06:58,379 And a chimpanzee could create grammatical sentences. 42 00:06:58,379 --> 00:07:05,060 So without much preparation and without really asking permission of my children, my husband, 43 00:07:05,060 --> 00:07:07,240 I said, fine, I can do it. 44 00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:09,620 I even have the funds to do it with. 45 00:07:09,620 --> 00:07:12,660 We don't need to worry about money. 46 00:07:12,660 --> 00:07:14,579 And so it was launched. 47 00:07:14,579 --> 00:07:17,699 The experiment was launched. 48 00:07:17,699 --> 00:07:21,600 When Nim came to New York, he was barely two weeks old. 49 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:31,500 idea was that he would be treated in every way like a human infant i had recently moved to a 50 00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:38,300 brownstone on the upper west side with my three children and with my husband who had four children 51 00:07:38,300 --> 00:07:49,660 weir lafarge weir was a poet and a writer he redefined himself became what at that time was 52 00:07:49,660 --> 00:08:03,610 called a rich hippie new husband new family new house and I brought him into 53 00:08:03,610 --> 00:08:13,829 that rather turbulent situation it just happened there was no family discussion 54 00:08:13,829 --> 00:08:19,709 about should we shouldn't it was just oh we're having a chimp we're going to 55 00:08:19,709 --> 00:08:25,189 teach a sign language and then the reality of it is sort of hitting you 56 00:08:25,189 --> 00:08:30,430 that it's really, you know, it's alive, it's not a doll, it's not a toy, it's not a human, 57 00:08:30,730 --> 00:08:38,830 it's a chimp, and it's an amazing, sweet, little, newborn baby, needy creature. 58 00:08:39,269 --> 00:08:44,529 So, I think I fell in love instantly. 59 00:08:47,009 --> 00:08:52,990 Nim didn't like Weir, and Weir didn't like him. 60 00:08:55,190 --> 00:08:58,909 Almost instantly, I saw how complicated this was going to be. 61 00:09:00,269 --> 00:09:02,330 I think we went along with it. 62 00:09:03,110 --> 00:09:05,789 It was clearly Stephanie sort of saying, 63 00:09:05,929 --> 00:09:06,789 let's have a chimp. 64 00:09:08,769 --> 00:09:10,149 It was the 70s. 65 00:09:12,570 --> 00:09:14,789 I breastfed him for a couple of months. 66 00:09:15,509 --> 00:09:18,330 It seemed completely natural. 67 00:09:19,929 --> 00:09:22,730 Everything was about treating him like a human being. 68 00:09:22,730 --> 00:09:32,340 by the time I had him of course I felt very comfortable with babies I wasn't prepared at 69 00:09:32,340 --> 00:09:46,460 all for the wild animal in him and the drive by the time he was three months old I think 70 00:09:46,460 --> 00:09:55,519 and and starting to be ambulatory he was just right there nothing passive nothing passive ever 71 00:09:57,980 --> 00:10:07,200 You know, I think he figured that he could just get in between Weir and Stephanie, um, 72 00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:19,159 on some level, and Weir put his arm around her and, and Nim just, you know, half asleep 73 00:10:19,159 --> 00:10:24,799 having a bottle, you know, turn and bit Weir on the arm quite hard. 74 00:10:24,799 --> 00:10:29,759 He didn't want Weir in the picture. 75 00:10:29,759 --> 00:10:33,460 with Stephanie Alford, you know, himself. 76 00:10:33,559 --> 00:10:37,460 We're definitely felt excluded. 77 00:10:37,559 --> 00:10:41,139 Nim had just become part of my being. 78 00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:46,279 That was incompatible with the role that I played as wife. 79 00:10:53,860 --> 00:10:56,799 Herb's coming, Herb's coming, Herb's coming. 80 00:10:56,899 --> 00:10:59,799 Herb's coming was a big deal. 81 00:10:59,799 --> 00:11:06,600 I would just go over and visit, just to see what his state was and how he was getting along. 82 00:11:08,539 --> 00:11:11,279 Herb was infinitely exciting. 83 00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:17,799 I admired his intellect and his goals and his arrogance, all those things. 84 00:11:21,059 --> 00:11:26,679 There was something that didn't sit right with me about him. 85 00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:29,460 Woof! Woof! Woof! 86 00:11:30,419 --> 00:11:34,820 The people that I am the closest to throughout my life 87 00:11:34,820 --> 00:11:38,799 are people that I have had some period of sexual contact with. 88 00:11:39,879 --> 00:11:45,559 I don't think that the previous sexual relationship 89 00:11:45,559 --> 00:11:49,639 between Herb and myself made a difference to the project at all, 90 00:11:50,299 --> 00:11:56,480 other than it was part of the glue that allowed it to happen. 91 00:11:56,480 --> 00:12:10,460 her didn't come very much he wasn't part of the caretaking package at all young newborn chimps 92 00:12:10,460 --> 00:12:18,460 are always raised by their mothers not by their fathers um and i didn't see any way of trying to 93 00:12:18,460 --> 00:12:28,009 or any point in trying to change that for better or worse i had never regarded him as a child i 94 00:12:28,009 --> 00:12:33,789 regarding him as an intelligent personable center of a scientific 95 00:12:33,789 --> 00:12:45,700 project I had an implicit faith that Nim would learn signs we had to wait and see 96 00:12:46,539 --> 00:12:52,379 how do they start teaching the child to sign does the child just watch and 97 00:12:52,379 --> 00:12:56,759 whatever I don't know I mean it was a problem we were trying to teach this 98 00:12:56,759 --> 00:13:00,139 chimp sign language and nobody in the house really was fluent in sign language 99 00:13:00,139 --> 00:13:07,279 We would mold his hand into the sign for drink, which is this, and then give him the bottle to drink. 100 00:13:17,539 --> 00:13:18,100 It just happened. 101 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,039 It was just amazing. 102 00:13:22,580 --> 00:13:25,220 And I thought, piece of cake. 103 00:13:26,259 --> 00:13:27,980 I was absolutely delighted. 104 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,440 He picked up quite a few signs after that rather quickly. 105 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:39,879 Eat, Me, Nim were part of his first signs. 106 00:13:39,879 --> 00:13:45,690 Hug was another one. 107 00:13:45,690 --> 00:13:48,690 And it was as if then, okay, we're off now. 108 00:13:48,690 --> 00:13:50,690 We just got to build up the vocabulary. 109 00:13:50,690 --> 00:13:53,690 As much as we were molding him, 110 00:13:53,690 --> 00:13:56,690 we were molding these damn hands and all this stuff, 111 00:13:56,690 --> 00:13:58,690 he was starting to mold us. 112 00:13:58,690 --> 00:14:03,690 He knew every dynamic that was in the room instantly. 113 00:14:03,690 --> 00:14:10,769 he knew when you were upset whatever had happened and whatever you know 13 14 year 114 00:14:10,769 --> 00:14:17,549 old's life and he would come over and he would just come and sit with you and hug you and then 115 00:14:17,549 --> 00:14:27,460 just kiss the tears away and you know it was amazing you know just unconditional he was my 116 00:14:27,460 --> 00:14:34,899 lifeline he was my buddy and he was bringing something out in me a freedom 117 00:14:34,899 --> 00:14:42,580 to defy expectation and authority his greatest focus of defiance was against 118 00:14:42,580 --> 00:14:48,580 weir he would you know kind of pull books off the shelves and we're liked 119 00:14:48,580 --> 00:14:56,460 his books a certain way when he saw we're coming he would really do it it 120 00:14:56,460 --> 00:15:05,080 was very focused. It was intentional. Fuck you, I'm touching these. It was a problem. 121 00:15:07,460 --> 00:15:13,159 Weir was so impotent. I mean, what could he do? He'd chase him around, drop that, you 122 00:15:13,159 --> 00:15:16,240 know, blah, blah. I mean, he won every time. 123 00:15:25,460 --> 00:15:33,440 Dim saw Herb as his next adult male challenge. I mean, that is the life that he's hardwired 124 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:40,200 for to take on increasingly powerful male figures until he's the top. When 125 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:45,019 Herb would come over expecting to step in and have control of Nim and he 126 00:15:45,019 --> 00:15:49,700 couldn't and didn't, we loved it. We loved it. 127 00:15:49,700 --> 00:16:03,019 I cornered Nim and just went to pull him out of some hiding place and he bit me. 128 00:16:03,019 --> 00:16:08,340 frankly everybody in the family got a kick out of him doing just what Herb 129 00:16:08,340 --> 00:16:14,259 hated no one ever put him in his place and he just grew more and more and more 130 00:16:14,259 --> 00:16:24,679 more powerful and that was exciting to me we didn't have to try to control him 131 00:16:24,679 --> 00:16:30,759 in any way in fact we enjoyed just letting him hang out and see how it went 132 00:16:30,759 --> 00:16:42,049 Stephanie being the kind of mother she was was not very concerned about this 133 00:16:42,049 --> 00:16:50,049 one it was sort of the hippie mentality and i think what i would tell her would go in one ear 134 00:16:50,049 --> 00:17:02,240 and out the other herb would have wanted a schedule and a structure and charted progress 135 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:12,079 and notes and all of that i didn't supply that i didn't couldn't create that and i don't think nim 136 00:17:12,079 --> 00:17:30,779 would have thrived in that I was taking classes at Columbia University and there 137 00:17:30,779 --> 00:17:36,200 was a small sign that said research assistant needed course credit granted 138 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:48,130 man opened the door and he was completely breathless he also he's one 139 00:17:48,130 --> 00:17:53,950 of those men who was balding on the top so we had his hair pasted down but he 140 00:17:53,950 --> 00:18:02,579 He was so upset and disheveled that his hair was standing straight up on one side. 141 00:18:02,579 --> 00:18:11,599 He explained it was a language project and I immediately understood the scientific relevance. 142 00:18:11,599 --> 00:18:18,980 Nim was going to test the nature versus nurture hypotheses that were prevailing at the time. 143 00:18:18,980 --> 00:18:23,460 It really was at the cusp of science. 144 00:18:23,460 --> 00:18:28,460 Some things are just immediately obvious about someone from the beginning. 145 00:18:28,460 --> 00:18:31,460 You know what kind of person you have. 146 00:18:31,460 --> 00:18:35,460 I think she was 18, if I'm not mistaken. 147 00:18:35,460 --> 00:18:40,839 At the time, Nim was in Stephanie Lafarge's house, 148 00:18:40,839 --> 00:18:44,839 and my first job was to basically babysit, 149 00:18:44,839 --> 00:18:48,839 to go to the house and ostensibly teach him sign language. 150 00:18:48,839 --> 00:18:55,470 She came out of nowhere as a cute little thing from Ramapo. 151 00:18:56,970 --> 00:19:00,069 When I got there, I was actually really surprised. 152 00:19:00,170 --> 00:19:03,970 There was utter chaos. 153 00:19:04,069 --> 00:19:08,869 There was nothing. This was a scientific project. 154 00:19:10,410 --> 00:19:13,009 There were no journals. There were no logbooks. 155 00:19:13,109 --> 00:19:15,910 They didn't know who was covering them, 156 00:19:16,009 --> 00:19:17,710 when they were going to be covering them, 157 00:19:17,809 --> 00:19:20,809 who would be teaching them, when they would be teaching them. 158 00:19:20,809 --> 00:19:27,930 them they didn't know what they were going to teach him she quickly felt her power it was 159 00:19:27,930 --> 00:19:34,490 completely visible you know everybody had to adapt to it she wanted that mother role 160 00:19:36,569 --> 00:19:46,170 this animal climbed the walls all day he ripped apart stephanie's house all day 161 00:19:46,170 --> 00:19:53,130 The kinds of things she was exposing them to were atypical. 162 00:19:53,829 --> 00:19:59,720 He loved driving fast in cars. 163 00:19:59,859 --> 00:20:00,819 He loved motorcycles. 164 00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:04,160 He loved, you know, virtually anything thrilling. 165 00:20:07,569 --> 00:20:09,369 He liked alcohol. 166 00:20:09,789 --> 00:20:11,369 You'd give him a sip and he'd want more. 167 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:16,559 We gave him puffs on a joint. 168 00:20:17,380 --> 00:20:26,309 We didn't have to treat him like a child. 169 00:20:26,309 --> 00:20:30,309 We could expose him to the sensations that we enjoyed. 170 00:20:33,039 --> 00:20:37,599 I had an instinctive sense that something was very amiss here, 171 00:20:38,140 --> 00:20:43,519 that this is not the way you teach a child language 172 00:20:43,519 --> 00:20:49,119 or you interact with a child or you teach anything language. 173 00:20:50,019 --> 00:20:57,759 When Nim began to discover my body, my nakedness, 174 00:20:57,759 --> 00:21:09,059 I mean, like a child, he was uninterested and then one day he was interested. 175 00:21:09,059 --> 00:21:13,680 I never felt sexually engaged with him. 176 00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:20,819 There was a sensuality, but Nim was a preteen. 177 00:21:20,819 --> 00:21:25,359 Stephanie was a graduate student in psychoanalysis. 178 00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:31,680 Her questions had to do with the Oedipal complex and she was interested in Nim's masturbation. 179 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:40,640 and how he masturbated i couldn't believe it i realized that i could not do what i call good 180 00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:49,839 science um in stephanie's home it just wasn't conducive to that so i set up a classroom at 181 00:21:49,839 --> 00:21:58,960 columbia he's gonna take him to school and i realize i'm starting to lose my role as the 182 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:06,559 person who knows the best what he needs we had to get him in a context that was neutral 183 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:17,680 calming soothing i just mapped out a teaching plan for them and i did it 184 00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:28,720 she was so enthusiastic about this that i made her in a sense the director of education 185 00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:36,000 the curriculum i was feeling good about myself also i was succeeding with them i could see i 186 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:41,759 was succeeding with them i can see it i can see that no one could hold a candle to me 187 00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:49,680 the only thing that mattered to him it became more and more tense you know words words words 188 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:54,720 words words word order word order word order uh he couldn't he couldn't see anything else 189 00:22:54,720 --> 00:23:02,400 herb started seeing the signs grow on that little graph every day every other day every three days 190 00:23:03,039 --> 00:23:10,640 laura taught him another sign laura taught him another sign and i just went hell for leather 191 00:23:13,700 --> 00:23:19,619 nymph signing was just almost exponentially increasing i was very happy 192 00:23:19,619 --> 00:23:31,240 words are a fucking nightmare when it comes to closeness often um and here i was married to a 193 00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:41,039 poet working for a linguist you know i was you know words were the became the enemy she started 194 00:23:41,039 --> 00:23:50,480 restricting the times we can come in the house uh she started throwing us out she apparently 195 00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:59,769 was uh you know encouraged to believe that she was now the mother stephanie began to threaten 196 00:23:59,769 --> 00:24:12,220 to take nim away from her and herb started panicking i definitely initiated the move 197 00:24:12,220 --> 00:24:16,460 out of stephanie's house i think she was initially quite resistant to it 198 00:24:17,099 --> 00:24:23,180 uh especially since she didn't know exactly how nim was going to end up god had spoken that's 199 00:24:23,180 --> 00:24:35,579 what that's what had happened that's what was going on and we didn't have control so 200 00:24:37,740 --> 00:24:45,099 my separation from him was just as abrupt in a way at that moment as his was from carolyn's 201 00:24:45,099 --> 00:25:00,680 I was ostensibly conscious, but I was no less, I was as unaware and, you know, un-in-charge and helpless as she was. 202 00:25:03,029 --> 00:25:17,390 It was heartbreaking, saying goodbye. 203 00:25:22,910 --> 00:25:25,930 Part of me did not want him to learn language. 204 00:25:25,930 --> 00:25:57,859 he was less with language than he was as his unique self at that time a very lucky thing happened 205 00:25:57,859 --> 00:26:06,579 i was aware that there was a estate that columbia owned in riverdale very large estate 206 00:26:06,579 --> 00:26:14,700 that used to be the home of the president and i went to him with a proposition that if he allowed 207 00:26:14,700 --> 00:26:34,559 me to raise the chimp there I would pay for the heat and said sure this was amazing this was a 208 00:26:34,559 --> 00:26:45,940 fairy tale we got there's a 28-acre estate surrounded by lovely gardens and that allowed 209 00:26:45,940 --> 00:26:54,740 me to put up nims teachers in magnificent surroundings and not pay any rent the wife is good 210 00:26:57,140 --> 00:27:05,779 nim got out of the car ran up to the front door rolled down the hill and he was gone 211 00:27:07,220 --> 00:27:22,220 he was free so there was no reaction at having taken him out of stephanie's house 212 00:27:23,579 --> 00:27:37,109 he was fine and it was like he had been there his whole life he certainly was a 213 00:27:37,109 --> 00:27:44,390 different chimpanzee in this mansion than he was with Stephanie so I sort of 214 00:27:44,390 --> 00:27:56,750 got into more you know interacting with him Herb's power as a professor his age 215 00:27:56,750 --> 00:28:11,369 completely impacted me he was my model we really clicked together I wanted so 216 00:28:11,369 --> 00:28:21,829 much to be a part of his world I wanted to be in that world of academia I had 217 00:28:21,829 --> 00:28:30,029 strong personal feelings about Laura but I don't think that in any way got in the 218 00:28:30,029 --> 00:28:47,410 way of our science some of the the daily bodily requirements that Nim had had to 219 00:28:47,410 --> 00:28:55,519 be addressed and very quickly I eventually couldn't handle the diapers 220 00:28:55,519 --> 00:29:00,619 anymore he was getting bigger and he was eating more of our food so pragmatically 221 00:29:00,619 --> 00:29:07,619 I had to get him off those diapers I watched his facial expressions when he 222 00:29:07,619 --> 00:29:14,539 needed the potty and I began to see it and grab him and bring him to the potty. 223 00:29:14,539 --> 00:29:20,480 He did actually did use the toilet correctly but it was certainly not as 224 00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:31,519 reliable as what you'd see in a child. The idea was that I would live with Nim 225 00:29:31,519 --> 00:29:37,160 and I would train him for a certain period of time in the house but then I 226 00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:44,980 And I would bring him in every day to Columbia University. 227 00:29:44,980 --> 00:29:52,220 This was an experiment to teach or see if a chimpanzee can learn sign language. 228 00:29:52,220 --> 00:29:56,440 I just thought it was really interesting, intellectually interesting. 229 00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,680 Interesting to understand how much chimpanzees are like us and how much they're not. 230 00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:10,390 At that time he was terribly cute, you know, getting little photos in New York Magazine. 231 00:30:10,390 --> 00:30:14,309 There was a daily lesson plan, if you will, where we were supposed to teach these particular 232 00:30:14,309 --> 00:30:22,309 signs to Nim, and they were supposed to also teach him everyday activities. 233 00:30:22,309 --> 00:30:27,069 Dress yourself, undress yourself, this sort of thing. 234 00:30:27,069 --> 00:30:33,190 Like children, after they learn a few words, Nim has spontaneously put signs together. 235 00:30:33,190 --> 00:30:39,789 In many instances, we allow Nim to use his own signs that he almost invents, so long 236 00:30:39,789 --> 00:30:45,130 as they're consistent for example this is the sign for play that he invented 237 00:30:45,130 --> 00:30:50,650 he's learning signs rapidly they're going up up up up up the project was 238 00:30:50,650 --> 00:30:57,789 literally humming everything was going very smoothly I have a chimpanzee who was 239 00:30:57,789 --> 00:31:03,549 making history we did get a grant somewhere in that time the project had 240 00:31:03,549 --> 00:31:08,950 begun to enter the media so there was all this excitement and hype about the 241 00:31:08,950 --> 00:31:19,480 project we were thrilled we've probably all seen performing chimpanzees on television or in 242 00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:26,440 circuses but nim is no ordinary chimp since he was a few weeks old nim has lived in a close 243 00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:31,480 association with a group of scientists under the direction of dr herbert terrace of columbia 244 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:37,720 university they're performing a unique experiment to try to determine whether apes can be taught to 245 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:43,599 communicate with humans using language how big will he be when he's full grown 246 00:31:43,599 --> 00:31:49,380 oh he's gonna be big he's gonna be about five feet tall perhaps 150 pounds and 247 00:31:49,380 --> 00:31:54,039 supposedly five to six times the strength of men how are you going to be 248 00:31:54,039 --> 00:32:00,279 able to handle him then he had grown I guess he was probably something like 249 00:32:00,279 --> 00:32:07,660 that and he you know if you had to hold him you really had to hold him on his 250 00:32:07,660 --> 00:32:14,660 He's gone from being this meek little huggable toy to quite a robust young chimpanzee. 251 00:32:19,809 --> 00:32:25,210 His eye teeth were never taken out, which means that he's got fangs, essentially, sitting here. 252 00:32:25,650 --> 00:32:26,769 Extremely strong jaw. 253 00:32:27,450 --> 00:32:32,710 If you didn't assert dominance in some fashion, you were going to be in trouble eventually. 254 00:32:35,849 --> 00:32:37,990 He could size somebody up in two seconds. 255 00:32:37,990 --> 00:32:43,410 whether they were confident or secretly unconfident. 256 00:32:44,069 --> 00:32:46,009 If I stood up too quickly, 257 00:32:46,509 --> 00:32:50,690 if I accidentally showed him my back too quickly, 258 00:32:51,170 --> 00:32:55,289 if I had food and I didn't think to share it with him, 259 00:32:55,549 --> 00:32:57,990 he'd cross that threshold and go into attack. 260 00:33:00,589 --> 00:33:02,789 You could tell that he was getting an attitude. 261 00:33:03,410 --> 00:33:05,329 The hair would go up on his arms, 262 00:33:06,029 --> 00:33:08,710 and you sort of get this look in his face. 263 00:33:09,809 --> 00:33:16,490 When he would bark, I'd feel it inside, the danger. 264 00:33:18,859 --> 00:33:24,940 He had to lunge, the contact, the rip, the tear, and the release. 265 00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:26,579 And he had to draw blood. 266 00:33:30,259 --> 00:33:34,420 She did not tell me that in an alarming manner. 267 00:33:34,660 --> 00:33:35,720 She was just reporting it. 268 00:33:36,819 --> 00:33:42,220 Maybe I was just too looking ahead with blinkers, not wanting to hear that. 269 00:33:42,220 --> 00:33:44,019 This is 37 stitches. 270 00:33:45,119 --> 00:33:48,720 I had four here, nine here. 271 00:33:49,099 --> 00:33:51,819 This one sent me into the hospital. 272 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:53,859 This one actually was the most dangerous one 273 00:33:53,859 --> 00:33:55,039 because he hit a tendon. 274 00:34:08,690 --> 00:34:12,469 It's a lot of work to take care of an animal 275 00:34:12,469 --> 00:34:15,050 that's not your species who has that kind of energy level. 276 00:34:15,690 --> 00:34:16,730 I probably didn't know the difference 277 00:34:16,730 --> 00:34:18,090 between chimpanzees and monkeys, 278 00:34:18,090 --> 00:34:24,989 so I was as blind and as ignorant and as naive as probably they came I was on a 279 00:34:24,989 --> 00:34:31,590 quick learning curve I have high energy and enthusiasm for a 280 00:34:31,590 --> 00:34:39,230 goal and he was my goal apparently Joyce was a great teacher she signed she was 281 00:34:39,230 --> 00:34:49,360 completely dedicated and motivated she wanted to do this this was fantastic he 282 00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,599 He bit me really hard, and I bit him on the ear right then and there. 283 00:34:53,599 --> 00:35:00,900 And I said, that's over, you will never bite me again, and he never did. 284 00:35:00,900 --> 00:35:06,280 He did like a lot of human body contact. 285 00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:12,389 Typically when we would leave the property, he would be really attached to you. 286 00:35:12,389 --> 00:35:22,420 The world would scare him, so he would always come close. 287 00:35:22,420 --> 00:35:26,059 Bill and I hung tight with him. 288 00:35:26,059 --> 00:35:31,280 sort of hit it off and a lot of our different thinking she and I got 289 00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:38,380 together as a couple it helped that we liked each other and I think that that 290 00:35:38,380 --> 00:35:44,179 helped Nim's life because we enjoyed each other's company so we would do 291 00:35:44,179 --> 00:35:48,219 things together and we would hang out as kind of a unit 292 00:35:48,219 --> 00:36:00,679 oh he was really really tender with the cat and he'd hold it and he just sort 293 00:36:00,679 --> 00:36:07,300 like to feel the touch something about it he'd like would hold her and be like 294 00:36:07,300 --> 00:36:11,300 and you could see him like shaking because he'd be like so excited that he 295 00:36:11,300 --> 00:36:18,380 had actually like kind of pushed her and then curled around her and just like lay 296 00:36:18,380 --> 00:36:39,869 it there like I'm in heaven I would say that it was fairly clear that there was 297 00:36:39,869 --> 00:36:46,869 something more going on than the project at least from his side and I think we 298 00:36:46,869 --> 00:36:51,809 all felt it and we kind of had I don't want to say resentment but it's like 299 00:36:51,809 --> 00:36:57,630 she's what he sort of stopped this Laura thing if someone showed me some 300 00:36:57,630 --> 00:37:10,679 attention I thought it meant that they cared for me he had power I'm sure that 301 00:37:10,679 --> 00:37:21,960 you know unconsciously I took advantage of that somebody admires you why not so 302 00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:28,800 yeah we very briefly got involved and he very very briefly and abruptly got out 303 00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:37,760 of it the entanglement completely affected my decision to leave it's the 304 00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:48,400 humans i wanted to leave not the chimp herb didn't want it to happen he went into a very enthusiastic 305 00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:54,880 mode of trying to convince me not to go i wasn't panicked i wasn't panicked that the project is 306 00:37:54,880 --> 00:38:02,079 just gonna grind to a halt because laura left as i recall joyce and bill pretty much took care of 307 00:38:02,079 --> 00:38:16,880 that so I didn't lose any crucial aspect of the project I started to go to get 308 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:24,219 the boxes to leave and Nim pulled loose from the person's hand he climbs to the 309 00:38:24,219 --> 00:38:36,960 second floor of the house then he must have lunged 25 feet he landed on me he 310 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:47,719 took my head and he started pounding it into the pavement it took four males to 311 00:38:47,719 --> 00:39:06,329 get him off me he wasn't my child he wasn't my baby you can't give human 312 00:39:06,329 --> 00:39:24,000 nurturing to an animal that could kill you one of the easy parts of the project 313 00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,000 was to advertise for teachers. 314 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:31,000 I was like, oh, this is nice. 315 00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:35,000 I didn't set out to have women on the project predominantly, 316 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:37,000 but it certainly turned out that way. 317 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,000 And, you know, if that's the way it turned out, 318 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:41,000 that's the way it turned out. 319 00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,000 I was a trained interpreter for the deaf. 320 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,000 When I set my mind to something, I get what I want. 321 00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:50,000 I kept saying, I want to live here. 322 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:51,000 When am I moving in? 323 00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:52,000 When do I get to move in? 324 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:59,739 to move in and I would annoy her and finally he let me move in probably as 325 00:39:59,739 --> 00:40:06,219 time went on it may become more difficult for women to work with him 326 00:40:06,219 --> 00:40:10,300 he was gonna take advantage of the man he was big enough and strong enough that 327 00:40:10,300 --> 00:40:17,380 he could I mean it hurt his bites hurt you felt when he bit your hand he got 328 00:40:17,380 --> 00:40:26,949 the nerve and you'd get a running shock up your arm we had epic battles though but we made up 329 00:40:26,949 --> 00:40:34,429 he'd make that face and sign sorry it's oh well if i sign this you'll forgive me 330 00:40:34,429 --> 00:40:40,780 i had a relationship with a chimpanzee and i had conversations with another species 331 00:40:40,780 --> 00:40:50,079 it's not just him signing that was important to me it was what he was thinking and experiencing 332 00:40:50,079 --> 00:40:52,940 because we would talk when we would hang out. 333 00:40:53,739 --> 00:40:55,380 You know, we would talk about the things we would see, 334 00:40:55,460 --> 00:40:56,420 the things we would hear. 335 00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,659 As far as I'm concerned, our classroom was the house 336 00:41:01,659 --> 00:41:03,880 and the yard and the field trips that we would take. 337 00:41:13,139 --> 00:41:16,800 Science is a very objective enterprise. 338 00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,280 You can't have personal anecdotes 339 00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:21,840 of how I worked with Nim up at Delafield 340 00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:23,579 as opposed to the classroom. 341 00:41:24,079 --> 00:41:26,760 That's just of no interest to a scientist. 342 00:41:28,039 --> 00:41:31,280 Joyce did not see anything special about the classroom. 343 00:41:32,380 --> 00:41:35,699 Hated it. Hated it, hated it. He hated it. We hated it. 344 00:41:35,780 --> 00:41:42,440 That's not surprising, because she didn't get the results in the classroom that I was hoping for. 345 00:41:43,159 --> 00:41:44,780 Dick, do you know what time it is? 346 00:41:44,980 --> 00:41:45,219 Yeah. 347 00:41:45,579 --> 00:41:48,239 Going into a dungeon of a classroom, which it really was, 348 00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:52,340 I mean, the thing was 15 feet square, including the observation booth and everything else. 349 00:41:53,579 --> 00:41:56,380 No windows, no place really to have any activity. 350 00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,340 Trying to get Nim's attention was a bit of a struggle. 351 00:41:59,980 --> 00:42:02,139 And he would have rather been doing something else. 352 00:42:03,679 --> 00:42:07,989 Pay attention to me. 353 00:42:11,449 --> 00:42:11,769 Shh. 354 00:42:15,210 --> 00:42:16,809 So this is a sign for dirty. 355 00:42:17,269 --> 00:42:21,309 So we used it for toilet for him because it's a contact sign. 356 00:42:24,539 --> 00:42:27,360 He would jump through the signs that I asked him to jump through 357 00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:29,619 and then he would have had enough and he would say, 358 00:42:29,619 --> 00:42:44,269 I need to go to the bathroom and that's when I knew you little booger you use 359 00:42:44,269 --> 00:42:49,130 that sign because you knew it would make us leave there and get us out of there 360 00:42:49,130 --> 00:43:00,289 he was growing smarter and smarter and smarter in the sense of recognizing 361 00:43:00,289 --> 00:43:05,889 situations that he could take advantage of when he can get what he wanted 362 00:43:05,889 --> 00:43:21,380 he's starting to discover himself there was a big rock in the front yard and he 363 00:43:21,380 --> 00:43:27,880 used to like to pump it gonna hurt yourself that's a rock like look at 364 00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:34,000 himself as this whole thing with the physicality became you know an issue is 365 00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:38,920 much more cautious I think about letting the cats around around him letting play 366 00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:47,780 with play with the cats he would even try to not engage directly in sexual relationships 367 00:43:47,780 --> 00:43:52,820 with the animals but definitely to bring them to him and to his penis area 368 00:43:58,260 --> 00:44:01,380 and i just said no that's not what they're there for 369 00:44:09,300 --> 00:44:15,780 we realized i think all of us that it was becoming increasingly difficult to pursue the experiment 370 00:44:15,780 --> 00:44:22,780 Nim was scratching hard, he was biting harder, biting more often, biting more people. 371 00:44:22,780 --> 00:44:29,780 We hadn't mentioned the growing concern that we had about how to deal with Nim. 372 00:44:29,780 --> 00:44:34,780 Dr. Terrace was pretty much an absentee landlord. 373 00:44:34,780 --> 00:44:39,780 Herb was never alone with Nim, and Herb never had to spend any kind of time with him. 374 00:44:39,780 --> 00:44:46,059 once in a while you know photo shoots for him to either take photos or for him to have photos 375 00:44:46,059 --> 00:44:56,690 taken of him yes there were occasional bites uh i imagine they increased in frequency just 376 00:44:56,690 --> 00:45:04,889 because nim is getting older in that sense he was becoming more chimp like but it didn't seem 377 00:45:04,889 --> 00:45:14,840 to be a cause for alarm at that point it was the end of july it was july 28th and bill had him 378 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,480 and we did the body-to-body transfer. 379 00:45:20,429 --> 00:45:24,769 I mean, you're holding them, and the other person comes up, 380 00:45:24,869 --> 00:45:27,889 and you just kind of hand the chimp to the other person. 381 00:45:28,190 --> 00:45:29,269 And I said, come on. 382 00:45:29,969 --> 00:45:31,150 And I got the tether. 383 00:45:32,409 --> 00:45:35,909 You know, you've got the loop first, and I then tied it to my belt. 384 00:45:37,389 --> 00:45:38,090 Come here. 385 00:45:38,449 --> 00:45:41,429 And he came over, and he put his arms around me. 386 00:45:41,429 --> 00:45:45,210 He just crunched my face. 387 00:45:46,789 --> 00:45:48,690 It just happened. 388 00:45:50,940 --> 00:45:53,539 And I grabbed Nim and just dragged him into the house. 389 00:45:53,639 --> 00:45:56,780 And he was like, ooh, sorry, sorry, sorry, no, no, no, no. 390 00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,119 And I passed that armoire with that mirror 391 00:45:59,219 --> 00:46:00,860 and I saw all this blood. 392 00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:05,360 He bit through my cheek almost to the inside of my mouth. 393 00:46:05,460 --> 00:46:08,400 It was folded over so you could see inside my face. 394 00:46:14,510 --> 00:46:16,449 Recall she went to the emergency room, 395 00:46:16,550 --> 00:46:21,440 but I think that something like that happened. 396 00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,860 It was just, it was just bad. 397 00:46:26,039 --> 00:46:28,480 I was probably worried that she would sue me, 398 00:46:29,500 --> 00:46:32,619 or this would become a public, 399 00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:34,840 this would become public knowledge 400 00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:40,199 about how life-threatening the project might be. 401 00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:43,119 They couldn't sew it because of the infection 402 00:46:43,119 --> 00:46:44,219 and the risk of infection. 403 00:46:44,219 --> 00:46:48,860 So I had an open, gaping wound on my face for three months. 404 00:46:49,860 --> 00:47:02,940 When I got out of the hospital, I said, you know, I want to see Nim. 405 00:47:03,219 --> 00:47:06,619 He went, ooh, and he went to reach for my face again. 406 00:47:06,820 --> 00:47:10,340 I went, well, that's it. I don't need closure now. I'm out of here. 407 00:47:10,980 --> 00:47:12,480 I was scared. 408 00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,000 I'm tenacious, and I didn't want to let go. 409 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:19,840 Sort of like breaking up with a bad boyfriend. 410 00:47:20,940 --> 00:47:28,960 I was sorry that it came to that, 411 00:47:29,300 --> 00:47:32,739 but you just don't know how Nim is going to change, 412 00:47:32,739 --> 00:47:38,179 and you just can't count on having outstanding teachers all the time. 413 00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:50,539 I felt I was spreading myself too thinly 414 00:47:50,539 --> 00:47:53,039 and experiencing too much stress 415 00:47:53,039 --> 00:47:56,380 and not enough, you know, good results. 416 00:48:00,780 --> 00:48:03,760 Nobody keeps a chimp for more than five years 417 00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:08,039 because at five years they don't know their own strength 418 00:48:08,039 --> 00:48:09,940 and they can do a lot of damage to people. 419 00:48:09,940 --> 00:48:26,480 he called us together and dropped the bomb and said it's over i was one very angry young woman 420 00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:40,159 you don't say we're not doing this anymore and because herb had that card to play he played it 421 00:48:40,159 --> 00:48:51,789 because he was in the power seat i think i said there's no point of this going on scientifically 422 00:48:51,789 --> 00:49:00,199 I felt that NIM had progressed a lot, and we hadn't had a chance to really analyze our data. 423 00:49:01,039 --> 00:49:03,420 I just knew that we had reams of data. 424 00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:14,760 This whole mass of data that needed to be organized, and that was going to be a long and tedious process. 425 00:49:15,739 --> 00:49:19,659 The fundamental question was, can a chimpanzee create a sentence? 426 00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:24,719 I don't think I had any definitive conclusions to that. 427 00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:33,320 we had to wait and see it's kind of like you know you get you're almost there and 428 00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:41,119 you feel like there's gonna be a conclusion and it's like okay it's over 429 00:49:41,119 --> 00:49:52,260 I thought that the surroundings in which he was born would provide the most 430 00:49:52,260 --> 00:49:58,719 psychological support from them I felt the basic needs would be taken 431 00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:41,849 care of. Once I got the women to agree to take him back that was it. I hope he'll be okay. That's why I want to go with him. I hope that I'll be able to introduce him to his new life but still have an old part of his life with him namely me and he can get used to it and I can fade out and he'll be fine. It won't just be an abrupt break between old and new. 432 00:50:42,929 --> 00:51:05,300 and we're getting him up early one morning 433 00:51:05,300 --> 00:51:20,699 he gets a shot and he's out i chartered a plane and hired a pilot 434 00:51:20,699 --> 00:51:36,880 and tranquilizers to reduce the possibility of his getting out of hand 435 00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:47,860 if he was tranquilized he'd be easy to control and not do any damage to the plane which could 436 00:51:47,860 --> 00:51:57,400 be quite dangerous. So that's how we get him to Oklahoma. It was just a nasty thing to 437 00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:10,780 do. Very deceitful. The question is what was going to happen in Oklahoma. And I didn't 438 00:52:10,780 --> 00:52:47,539 have any sense of that. So that was my concern. Holy shit. That's my first thought. 439 00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:54,250 And I think his reaction was, holy shit, too. 440 00:52:54,989 --> 00:52:57,610 Like he knew we were, he knew it was bad. 441 00:53:00,500 --> 00:53:02,760 And he'd never seen a chimp before. 442 00:53:03,699 --> 00:53:05,059 And he was holding on tight. 443 00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:16,199 You look around and see cages, and you hear the sounds of a lot of chimpanzees. 444 00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:21,920 Would I have envisioned this when I started this project, that he ever would end up there? 445 00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:22,760 No. 446 00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:37,179 it turned out to be a surprisingly more primitive facility than i remembered because our cages were 447 00:53:37,179 --> 00:53:43,039 cages they weren't just a room with a locked door they were cages i mean it looked like a prison 448 00:53:43,039 --> 00:53:48,780 really stark ugly dark dank prison 449 00:53:48,780 --> 00:53:54,159 they had a chain around their neck with a lock 450 00:53:54,159 --> 00:54:02,440 should you get into a bad fight you could grab the chain and keep them off of you 451 00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:07,739 it was like prison behavior we had to put up an electric fence around the island because we had 452 00:54:07,739 --> 00:54:15,340 had several murders and two suicides they just pushed them out into the water the chips can't 453 00:54:15,340 --> 00:54:23,460 swim dr lemon ran the place i had an immediate horrible reaction he walked around with a cattle 454 00:54:23,460 --> 00:54:31,920 rod i remember trying to push him away because i knew what he was going to do 455 00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:39,440 and he was screaming and holding on to me very tightly and the only reason he like oh 456 00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:43,760 that's because he got zapped with the electric prop 457 00:54:49,199 --> 00:54:57,360 okay come here come here come here come here the reasoning behind the whole mac 458 00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:01,440 nym interaction was that mac was not dangerous 459 00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:12,960 he was small so he was not an aggressive dominant chimp so he was the perfect one for nym to start 460 00:55:12,960 --> 00:56:11,000 with hey Mac how did you expect him to react to his first meeting with another 461 00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:16,579 chick I think what happened was that Nim was very apprehensive about Mac and he 462 00:56:16,579 --> 00:56:24,320 took his time and then when he was ready you know he and Mac got it off I feel 463 00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:30,559 very good about this because i can leave now knowing that um him has a friend uh and he's 464 00:56:30,559 --> 00:56:35,320 going to worry less about his human companions and have you know at least one other chimp to turn to 465 00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:50,050 it was time to leave and that's when i took him and put him in the cage 466 00:56:50,050 --> 00:56:59,320 sure i didn't want joyce doing it so i just said well i'm gonna go do it i didn't want 467 00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:15,579 terrorist doing it. So I just decided I was gonna do it. You know we coaxed him down there and then 468 00:57:15,579 --> 00:57:23,400 because he trusted us. I just let him in there and took the lead and tied it around the far end 469 00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:43,389 of the cage and said goodbye and walked out and shut the door. He was sort of hooting and trying 470 00:57:43,389 --> 00:57:50,030 to come after me um because he didn't really know where he was but um i just just walked away 471 00:57:50,030 --> 00:58:20,219 and that way it wasn't like any right i did feel badly i felt in a certain basic sense that was 472 00:58:20,219 --> 00:58:25,280 not the right thing to do because somebody you know had been part of my life for so many years 473 00:58:25,280 --> 00:58:32,199 and that i was definitely doing something that he somehow would feel was unjust or wrong 474 00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:42,570 He had a little doll or something that I think I left. 475 00:58:43,650 --> 00:58:54,670 I strongly believe that we made a commitment to him, and we failed. 476 00:58:57,360 --> 00:59:03,119 We did a huge disservice to that soul, and shame on us. 477 00:59:14,559 --> 00:59:18,000 Assumed, I guess wrongly, that Nim was going to come back 478 00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:21,820 and he was going to be celebrated in the sense that he was going to be the great signing chimp. 479 00:59:21,820 --> 00:59:27,380 no exactly the opposite exactly the opposite 480 00:59:27,380 --> 00:59:38,320 nim in the cage no special treatment no yogurt no granola no none of that it's pretty traumatic 481 00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:52,309 for the chimp they curl up and lay down they lose interest in food they're just 482 00:59:52,309 --> 00:59:58,960 it was a bad start with Nim and I 483 00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:00,519 the chimp is very upset 484 01:00:00,519 --> 01:00:02,719 and he just looks at me 485 01:00:02,719 --> 01:00:04,500 and he jumps and lunches me 486 01:00:04,500 --> 01:00:06,119 and bites through an artery 487 01:00:06,119 --> 01:00:07,679 right in here 488 01:00:07,679 --> 01:00:10,460 I did use a small shock stick 489 01:00:10,460 --> 01:00:15,780 he had to grow up 490 01:00:15,780 --> 01:00:17,400 and not be a single 491 01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:19,420 spoiled child anymore 492 01:00:19,420 --> 01:00:23,500 so you gotta socialize 493 01:00:23,500 --> 01:00:24,860 work on his chimpanzee 494 01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:27,500 and manners 495 01:00:27,500 --> 01:00:38,090 everybody needs a job 496 01:00:38,090 --> 01:00:40,289 meaning and purpose 497 01:00:40,289 --> 01:00:46,530 had them out 498 01:00:46,530 --> 01:00:48,809 they would help me in the big kitchen 499 01:00:48,809 --> 01:00:50,949 where we prepped our food and did stuff 500 01:00:50,949 --> 01:00:51,869 they'd sweep 501 01:00:51,869 --> 01:00:54,690 Nim was the impulsive hand washer 502 01:00:54,690 --> 01:00:56,250 he'd do dishes 503 01:00:56,250 --> 01:00:59,389 Vanessa liked to dust 504 01:00:59,389 --> 01:01:03,030 little Mac liked to clean cages 505 01:01:03,030 --> 01:01:04,090 and wear my boots 506 01:01:04,090 --> 01:01:13,170 this was a special group of chimps you know they weren't ordinary chimps 507 01:01:13,170 --> 01:01:16,369 you know they had the capacity for higher consciousness 508 01:01:16,369 --> 01:01:42,190 terrence came back a year later 509 01:01:42,190 --> 01:01:49,590 herb arrived and with still photographers and cameras and that sort of thing 510 01:01:49,590 --> 01:01:58,989 it was a shoot and it was arranged as such there's no question that he was 511 01:01:58,989 --> 01:02:04,269 very happy that he could see me again there was no anger that why did you 512 01:02:04,269 --> 01:02:11,469 leave me here it was just hey that's great I'm gonna see him again you could 513 01:02:11,469 --> 01:02:16,210 see that he was like holy shit I'm go back to New York it was like that like 514 01:02:16,210 --> 01:02:28,760 he was going to be rescued it was kind of sad i played with him we got into games of signing 515 01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:35,460 i remember i got him to sign hug i got him to sign herb in fact i can get almost any sign out 516 01:02:35,460 --> 01:02:42,179 of him i didn't have to go through a drill so it was a very entertaining comfortable afternoon 517 01:02:42,179 --> 01:02:44,519 and no bad behavior of any kind. 518 01:02:45,739 --> 01:02:48,280 At the end of the day, looks at his watch, 519 01:02:48,699 --> 01:02:52,039 gets me, Nim back, and flies off. 520 01:02:53,659 --> 01:02:54,699 And is gone. 521 01:02:56,079 --> 01:02:58,760 Next morning, he barely ate. 522 01:02:59,179 --> 01:03:02,179 He just started to crater. 523 01:03:05,519 --> 01:03:06,519 Herb never came back. 524 01:03:10,139 --> 01:03:12,019 I thought, I'm going to become Nim's friend, 525 01:03:12,300 --> 01:03:15,019 and I'm going to hang with Nim, and we'll see what happens. 526 01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:20,760 I mean, there wasn't much I could do for him in terms of the cage, but get him out. 527 01:03:34,050 --> 01:03:37,789 We just liked each other right off, and sometimes it's like that. 528 01:03:54,639 --> 01:03:55,599 Chimps aren't hymns. 529 01:03:57,239 --> 01:04:02,840 You have to kind of understand chimps to be able to understand how to work with them and be with them. 530 01:04:05,079 --> 01:04:09,739 I took him out on walks. 531 01:04:10,099 --> 01:04:11,079 I didn't bring food. 532 01:04:11,079 --> 01:04:18,360 I didn't do the kind of things that would interrupt the relationship or the building of the relationship. 533 01:04:23,610 --> 01:04:26,429 He, you know, he grows on you quick. 534 01:04:27,250 --> 01:04:28,710 He was so charming. 535 01:04:28,909 --> 01:04:33,269 I mean, it didn't occur to me that animals had that kind of personality like ours. 536 01:04:35,809 --> 01:04:38,050 And you had to be two of heart. 537 01:04:38,610 --> 01:04:40,570 You had to be two of heart. 538 01:04:40,570 --> 01:04:43,929 If you had dark places in you, they'd know it. 539 01:04:43,969 --> 01:04:44,750 They wouldn't like you. 540 01:04:45,269 --> 01:05:09,199 Good morning. With us this morning is Dr. Herbert Terrace, a professor of psychology at Columbia University. 541 01:05:09,679 --> 01:05:19,480 For several years, Dr. Terrace was in charge of an experiment where he and several other human beings tried to teach a chimpanzee named NIM, the sign language of the deaf. 542 01:05:20,019 --> 01:05:28,880 But now in a book just published, which is called NIM, you're saying, Dr. Terrace, that these experiments don't prove as much as you had originally thought they did? 543 01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:43,230 I changed my mind about the data I suddenly saw what the key to this was 544 01:05:43,230 --> 01:05:52,530 Nim was a brilliant beggar he learned how to beg and he could work as teachers 545 01:05:52,530 --> 01:05:58,070 and always get what he wanted by moving his hands in different ways and most of 546 01:05:58,070 --> 01:06:03,809 the time he moved his hands in the ways that the teacher suggested and the 547 01:06:03,809 --> 01:06:10,530 motive of signing was not to say what a nice cat you have over there but I want 548 01:06:10,530 --> 01:06:16,050 it when the experiments were over you returned him to the primate colony where 549 01:06:16,050 --> 01:06:19,889 he was born and a year after that you went back for a visit and we came along 550 01:06:19,889 --> 01:06:25,510 with a camera you wouldn't hear talking in sign language here right and here we 551 01:06:25,510 --> 01:06:33,050 have it in slow motion what's NIMH saying he's saying give them banana why 552 01:06:33,050 --> 01:06:38,090 is it that you're saying that he can't speak like a human being well a string 553 01:06:38,090 --> 01:06:44,869 of signs is not necessarily a sentence you can learn a list of words by rote 554 01:06:44,869 --> 01:06:49,010 and that says nothing about your ability to use a grammar aren't you very 555 01:06:49,010 --> 01:06:52,969 disappointed that you spent all this time and all this money well it would 556 01:06:52,969 --> 01:06:56,389 have been very electrifying news almost like communicating with a creature from 557 01:06:56,389 --> 01:07:01,969 outer space if I could show that a another organism could use language the 558 01:07:01,969 --> 01:07:07,570 humans have but it didn't work it didn't work thank you very much dr terrace i hope somebody 559 01:07:07,570 --> 01:07:28,179 can still talk to him in any event i didn't care about the language argument after a while it 560 01:07:28,179 --> 01:07:35,730 didn't matter to me he might not have had sentences or grammar but there's no question 561 01:07:35,730 --> 01:07:49,739 that there was communication going on and i saw it clearly talked about the trees the berries that he 562 01:07:49,739 --> 01:08:17,380 found he liked to play favorite song play he knew what pop was a hash or 563 01:08:17,380 --> 01:08:34,850 whatever. And he wanted to smoke a joint. Stone, smoke. Now, when we went out on walks 564 01:08:34,850 --> 01:08:39,789 with Nim, Nim was one of us. If we smoked a joint, he smoked it with us in the circle 565 01:08:39,789 --> 01:08:47,670 and we handed it to him. Chimps are like us. They're hedonistic. They like to do pleasurable 566 01:08:47,670 --> 01:08:52,050 things they like to you know they like to have fun and I'm the health and who 567 01:08:52,050 --> 01:09:06,029 doesn't and there's something and marijuana they weren't aggressive you 568 01:09:06,029 --> 01:09:10,890 talk less you do different things you enjoy each other 569 01:09:10,890 --> 01:09:23,470 Lillian and them lived together in the pig barn both of them didn't have many 570 01:09:23,470 --> 01:09:37,399 chimp friends and then they became friends they were seen copulating and we 571 01:09:37,399 --> 01:09:56,239 think Nim might have been the father of Lily's baby at the best time of my life 572 01:09:56,239 --> 01:10:00,260 I still say that I've never had such a good time except maybe at a Grateful 573 01:10:00,260 --> 01:10:06,539 Dead show pretty close I don't even know which one I actually being with Nim I'd 574 01:10:06,539 --> 01:10:10,640 I'd rather be with Nim than Jerry, and that's, for me, that's saying something. 575 01:10:14,420 --> 01:10:15,039 That's real? 576 01:10:15,159 --> 01:10:16,159 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 577 01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:17,420 That's a banana? 578 01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:20,520 You want to eat the shoe? 579 01:10:23,479 --> 01:10:24,279 That's a shoe. 580 01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:25,359 This is a bear shoe. 581 01:10:37,520 --> 01:10:40,800 And that's when Mahoney started showing up. 582 01:10:42,939 --> 01:10:48,420 He was standing around looking at chimps and writing his pad and whatever, 583 01:10:48,420 --> 01:10:56,319 And when someone, when I found out who he was, and I'm sure it didn't take long for me to figure it out, I was, ugh. 584 01:10:56,859 --> 01:10:59,619 Obviously, he was checking out the chimps for the lab. 585 01:11:00,079 --> 01:11:09,100 LEMSIP is best known by its acronym, L-E-M-S-I-P, which is Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates. 586 01:11:09,359 --> 01:11:13,260 He represented the devil to me. 587 01:11:13,260 --> 01:11:30,460 Most of the work that we did with the chimpanzees, for example, was testing various candidate vaccines for like hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV, AIDS. 588 01:11:30,460 --> 01:11:39,880 I think it's very difficult to fund the kinds of research that I happen to be very much interested in. 589 01:11:39,979 --> 01:11:43,180 It's been difficult to fund social research in general. 590 01:11:43,260 --> 01:11:50,260 We heard about Dr. Lemon's problems, which were financial. 591 01:11:50,260 --> 01:11:57,579 It was finally arranged that, yes, we would take a very large part of their colony. 592 01:11:57,579 --> 01:12:03,170 I thought Lemon was trying to scare the university. 593 01:12:03,170 --> 01:12:06,170 I thought they would go, 594 01:12:06,170 --> 01:12:09,170 Gosh, you can't sell the medical lab. We've got to do something. 595 01:12:09,170 --> 01:12:12,170 I thought the community would rise itself up. 596 01:12:12,170 --> 01:12:20,170 Bob and I tried so hard with public appeal for something for the chimps and there was no response. 597 01:12:20,170 --> 01:12:25,170 And then shortly after that, the chimps were indeed sold. 598 01:12:32,739 --> 01:12:38,739 Of the chimps that are being sent off to the lab today, how many of them were subjects of the signing research? 599 01:12:38,739 --> 01:12:45,739 Only one was restricted to signing research, this is NIMH. 600 01:12:46,739 --> 01:12:59,680 As a chimp you've got no way of knowing what's happening to you, you're just suddenly cut off from seeing everything outside. 601 01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:09,680 Suddenly, after a day and a half of constant driving, you get out the other end and you're in another sort of room. 602 01:13:09,680 --> 01:13:35,340 room. I wouldn't say they were jumping with joy to find themselves in a new place. 603 01:13:35,340 --> 01:14:09,640 Look on the role of being the one who chose which animals would go into which types of study and I 604 01:14:09,640 --> 01:14:32,590 hated it these animals will be used on hepatitis vaccine safety tests it is a federal law that 605 01:14:32,590 --> 01:14:39,569 before at that a new batch of vaccine can be released on the american market it must be tested 606 01:14:39,569 --> 01:14:42,170 visiting four chimpanzees. 607 01:14:42,170 --> 01:14:48,409 There's no way, in all honesty, there's no way you can carry out research on animals 608 01:14:48,409 --> 01:14:50,810 and for it to be humane. 609 01:14:50,810 --> 01:14:55,750 It can't be humane because you already put them in a cage. 610 01:14:55,750 --> 01:15:06,939 That was already the first step and from there on it's downhill. 611 01:15:06,939 --> 01:15:13,039 We realized that certain of the Oklahoma chimps could use sign language and were trying to 612 01:15:13,039 --> 01:15:19,159 sign with us what we did was we wrote down on sheets of paper which we posted 613 01:15:19,159 --> 01:15:24,920 all over the place on doors and walls and everywhere we could find of certain 614 01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:31,979 signs and was hope that as time went by everyone would pick up at least a 615 01:15:31,979 --> 01:15:46,130 certain amount of sign language I didn't see Nim as special above anyone 616 01:15:46,130 --> 01:16:25,970 else in the group because they were all going through the same thing big big stink about it 617 01:16:25,970 --> 01:16:44,220 in every way i could i called the press we bitched as much as we could the student bob ingersoll 618 01:16:44,220 --> 01:16:49,979 he used to hound me every chance he got and I would start to get really annoyed 619 01:16:49,979 --> 01:17:00,220 and then it dawned on me that he was the only one who cared nobody nobody except 620 01:17:00,220 --> 01:17:04,619 the press helped us is there anything that you would consider doing to prevent 621 01:17:04,619 --> 01:17:09,560 what is going to happen to him unfortunately there's nothing I can do 622 01:17:09,560 --> 01:17:12,279 because legally NIMH is not mine. 623 01:17:12,699 --> 01:17:16,119 NIMH was loaned to me for the duration of my project. 624 01:17:16,720 --> 01:17:18,359 That project ran out of funds. 625 01:17:24,779 --> 01:17:26,680 Somebody at the Boston Globe 626 01:17:26,680 --> 01:17:30,100 told me to read a front-page story on that day. 627 01:17:30,640 --> 01:17:33,180 He said, I think you'd be interested, 628 01:17:33,399 --> 01:17:34,979 and I know you take unusual cases. 629 01:17:38,100 --> 01:17:41,579 As a human being, I thought it was a kind of esoteric, 630 01:17:41,840 --> 01:17:45,039 unique form of animal cruelty, all the worse for that. 631 01:17:45,039 --> 01:17:48,600 And as a lawyer, I thought it was just plain illegal. 632 01:17:48,600 --> 01:17:51,079 If the facts are as I'm being told 633 01:17:51,079 --> 01:17:54,640 that this young chimp was brought up from infancy 634 01:17:54,640 --> 01:17:58,399 in a human family, you can't stick him into a little cage 635 01:17:58,399 --> 01:18:00,460 in some horrible medical lab 636 01:18:00,460 --> 01:18:02,159 and use him for medical experiments. 637 01:18:02,159 --> 01:18:03,800 It's per se animal cruelty. 638 01:18:05,739 --> 01:18:07,680 Early on, I decided this. 639 01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:13,840 if this animal has been deliberately brought up from infanthood 640 01:18:13,840 --> 01:18:15,819 to think of himself as human, 641 01:18:16,699 --> 01:18:18,680 then if I'm going to represent him, 642 01:18:18,760 --> 01:18:20,779 I have to treat him like a human client. 643 01:18:21,819 --> 01:18:22,979 Give him his day in court. 644 01:18:25,840 --> 01:18:27,880 Henry and I, Mr. Herman, 645 01:18:28,119 --> 01:18:30,279 were in communication pretty much every day. 646 01:18:32,300 --> 01:18:34,619 He used a really cool strategy, actually. 647 01:18:34,739 --> 01:18:37,479 He said, hey, this Tim can speak for himself. 648 01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:39,199 Let's bring him into court and let him talk. 649 01:18:39,579 --> 01:18:43,840 What I had ready as a trial exhibit was a steel cage 650 01:18:43,840 --> 01:18:48,000 and a couple of strong guys with a pole ready to carry it into court 651 01:18:48,000 --> 01:18:52,119 and I was going to get Nim to go into a frenzy and signal out, out, out. 652 01:18:52,760 --> 01:18:56,680 And I believe the judge said something to the effect 653 01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:59,319 that I'm not letting a fucking chimpanzee come in here 654 01:18:59,319 --> 01:19:03,359 and make a mockery of my courtroom or something to that effect. 655 01:19:03,460 --> 01:19:06,960 And that's when I said I'm going to bring in effect a habeas corpus petition 656 01:19:06,960 --> 01:19:14,000 on behalf of Chimp, bring him to court. 657 01:19:14,000 --> 01:19:18,060 Our opponents were pigheaded, but they weren't stupid. 658 01:19:18,060 --> 01:19:21,760 They realized that win, lose, or draw, once I got into court, 659 01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:22,840 they'd be losing. 660 01:19:22,840 --> 01:19:25,619 Because even if the judge refused to hear them, 661 01:19:25,619 --> 01:19:29,300 the media attention would have been devastated. 662 01:19:29,300 --> 01:19:32,899 And the dean of the medical faculty said, that's it. 663 01:19:32,899 --> 01:19:41,220 Get that Chimp out of here. 664 01:19:41,220 --> 01:19:46,680 Before anything could happen, swooping down, 665 01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:55,989 like in some Ragnarian drama, comes Cleveland Amory. 666 01:19:55,989 --> 01:20:00,010 I want this to be a place where those animals that 667 01:20:00,010 --> 01:20:03,149 have been abused, that have been misused, 668 01:20:03,149 --> 01:20:08,289 will finally and forever have a place that they never 669 01:20:08,289 --> 01:20:12,600 will have to fear again. 670 01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:19,460 Mr. Amory had, up until then, perhaps a well-deserved reputation for doing important work for animal rights. 671 01:20:19,460 --> 01:20:29,380 And he just went and buys the chimp, takes him to his black horse ranch, or whatever it was called, and says, I am saving Nim. 672 01:20:30,020 --> 01:20:35,659 Leaving Amory to the rescue again, Nim will live here for the rest of his natural life. 673 01:20:38,000 --> 01:20:42,399 Here my story ends, my troubles are over, and I am at home. 674 01:20:42,600 --> 01:20:49,100 and that's what it says as you drive into black beauty ranch he was the only 675 01:20:49,100 --> 01:20:53,939 animal we ever bought and we didn't know a thing about chimpanzees but we just 676 01:20:53,939 --> 01:21:00,500 thought it was better what we could do was better than where he was it was 677 01:21:00,500 --> 01:21:07,079 never meant to be a home for caged animals it is really a home for abused 678 01:21:07,079 --> 01:21:16,710 and abandoned equine animals that's animals just with hooves we were 679 01:21:16,710 --> 01:21:22,569 got gassed that he would just pick up this chimp, transport him to a horse ranch somewhere 680 01:21:22,569 --> 01:21:31,039 in the middle of nowhere, and there was nobody there who knew how to take care of a chimp. 681 01:21:31,039 --> 01:21:38,619 We brought him to Black Beauty and built a house for him. It was a big kind of a square 682 01:21:38,619 --> 01:21:42,800 place and it had a porch outside so that he could go outside and he had all sorts of toys 683 01:21:42,800 --> 01:22:00,520 to play with, but it was solitary. Chimps are social animals and you can't just put 684 01:22:00,520 --> 01:22:15,300 one chimp in a box and expect everything to be cool some of the time was sitting like this in 685 01:22:15,300 --> 01:22:20,100 the corner and you just thought what is he thinking what is he missing what can we do 686 01:22:20,100 --> 01:22:26,420 will you please be sure to stop off here in the nation's capital we had a tv down and then he 687 01:22:26,420 --> 01:22:33,460 broke that and then we put one up in the ceiling and he found a way to get there well okay you 688 01:22:33,460 --> 01:22:41,579 don't get a television if that's going to be your attitude i wrote letters to cleveland bitching at 689 01:22:41,579 --> 01:22:58,390 him about how leaving them there alone was virtually torture not only they not care what 690 01:22:58,390 --> 01:23:05,189 i thought they wanted me as far away from them as possible and they wanted to make that pretty clear 691 01:23:05,829 --> 01:23:09,510 and they did make that pretty clear you know if you come here you'll be arrested 692 01:23:09,510 --> 01:23:49,979 i i i felt it you know and i just wanted to like i don't know i he got out a number of times 693 01:23:51,899 --> 01:23:59,100 what he wanted to do was go in the ranch house be in the ranch house be with people sleep in a bed 694 01:24:00,380 --> 01:24:03,819 we had a bed for him in his house we never slept in the bed in his house 695 01:24:03,819 --> 01:24:11,119 one time when he came in the house there was a little white poodle thing and just barked and 696 01:24:11,119 --> 01:24:15,819 barked and barked at this chimpanzee coming through the door he just picked it up and 697 01:24:15,819 --> 01:24:20,840 swung him against the wall he meant to shut the dog up but of course he killed the dog 698 01:24:20,840 --> 01:24:24,500 there was another time when he went in the house and he picked up a chair and threw it through the 699 01:24:24,500 --> 01:24:38,880 window this this is a very miserable chimpanzee you know he'd had such a checkered life and he 700 01:24:38,880 --> 01:24:43,859 gone from here to here to here to here to here they should be left they should 701 01:24:43,859 --> 01:24:59,119 not be taken away from their mothers in the first place I knew that Nim was 702 01:24:59,119 --> 01:25:03,140 there I didn't know anything about the quality of his life there I you heard 703 01:25:03,140 --> 01:25:11,380 good things and bad things and so on and I thought when I go so we all flew out 704 01:25:11,380 --> 01:25:17,380 to Texas we go to the ranch we meet the people taking care of him he was alone 705 01:25:17,380 --> 01:25:26,239 He was the only chimp there. 706 01:25:26,340 --> 01:25:28,520 I happened to be looking at him when Stephanie got out 707 01:25:28,619 --> 01:25:33,119 of the car, and he saw her, and he recognized her right away. 708 01:25:33,220 --> 01:25:37,119 And the look on his face was just, oh, now you come. 709 01:25:37,220 --> 01:25:38,119 Now you come. 710 01:25:38,220 --> 01:25:45,100 Now I've been through all this, and now you come. 711 01:25:45,199 --> 01:25:48,359 He definitely recognized us. 712 01:25:48,460 --> 01:25:54,859 Whether he was happy to see us, I don't know. 713 01:25:54,960 --> 01:25:57,199 He wasn't particularly attractive to me. 714 01:25:57,199 --> 01:26:02,579 Now that he was an adult chimpanzee, I didn't have a, oh, isn't he beautiful or anything like that. 715 01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,319 He was, he was, I didn't know him. 716 01:26:07,420 --> 01:26:18,000 My mother decides that she wants to go into the enclosure with Nim, which didn't, which happened sort of, I'm going to go in with Nim. 717 01:26:19,560 --> 01:26:25,279 We said to her, he doesn't look like he's going to welcome you, so maybe you shouldn't go into his facility. 718 01:26:27,199 --> 01:26:30,640 I was curious. Is he going to sign? What's going to happen? What's it going to be like? 719 01:26:31,060 --> 01:26:34,439 Stephanie, please don't go in there. He's not in a good mood. 720 01:26:34,600 --> 01:26:37,060 You know, you can tell he's not in a good mood. 721 01:26:40,119 --> 01:26:42,180 Opened the gate and walked in. 722 01:26:43,300 --> 01:26:48,579 And then went up to the, like, first and a half story, something like that, pretty high up. 723 01:26:49,699 --> 01:26:52,359 And I realized how much danger I was in. 724 01:26:57,199 --> 01:27:03,140 He came down, and then it was a blur. 725 01:27:03,239 --> 01:27:06,539 He grabbed her by the ankle, and he starts dragging her, 726 01:27:06,640 --> 01:27:09,180 running back and forth, literally like a rag doll, 727 01:27:09,279 --> 01:27:10,439 just pulling her back and forth. 728 01:27:10,539 --> 01:27:11,779 I think he was going to kill her. 729 01:27:11,880 --> 01:27:13,180 He was going to swing her against the wall, 730 01:27:13,279 --> 01:27:14,819 and then swing her against the wall again. 731 01:27:14,920 --> 01:27:15,979 There was nothing loving about it. 732 01:27:16,079 --> 01:27:16,779 He was furious. 733 01:27:20,659 --> 01:27:23,260 I remember being in discussions about getting the gun 734 01:27:23,359 --> 01:27:26,300 and not getting the gun, yeah. 735 01:27:26,300 --> 01:27:28,100 So they got a gun. 736 01:27:28,199 --> 01:27:34,920 No, he's not going to kill her. 737 01:27:35,020 --> 01:27:38,920 He's just really pissed off. 738 01:27:39,020 --> 01:27:41,760 Things dissipate, and he sort of wandered off, 739 01:27:41,859 --> 01:27:43,560 and I was able to get out of the door. 740 01:27:43,659 --> 01:27:48,100 I have no idea how long the whole thing lasted. 741 01:27:48,199 --> 01:27:52,600 The fact that he didn't kill her meant a lot, 742 01:27:52,699 --> 01:27:54,779 because he could have. 743 01:27:54,880 --> 01:27:56,180 And he would have been dead, because they 744 01:27:56,279 --> 01:27:57,579 would have shot him. 745 01:27:57,579 --> 01:28:18,600 I had abandoned him and he had managed to grow up and I had walked back in as if I had not abandoned him and he said no. This is my space. I'm going to put you in your place, but I'm not going to hurt you. 746 01:28:18,600 --> 01:28:37,020 we had done so much damage removing him from what his life should have been we exploited his human 747 01:28:37,020 --> 01:28:43,079 like nature without regard to his chimpanzee nature we were co-opting him right from the 748 01:28:43,079 --> 01:29:24,439 beginning it was wrong about a year after Nim was sold to the fund they 749 01:29:24,439 --> 01:29:30,260 purchased a female chimpanzee to be with him around ten years after that I heard 750 01:29:30,260 --> 01:29:35,020 she was in failing health I was worried that Nim was gonna be on his own again 751 01:29:35,020 --> 01:29:39,680 that same time I was told that a new guy had taken over the ranch and his name 752 01:29:39,680 --> 01:29:51,329 was Chris Byrne and so I approached Chris about visiting them and once I met 753 01:29:51,329 --> 01:29:56,529 Chris I was really really reassured that things were going to be much better for 754 01:29:56,529 --> 01:30:06,069 from him. Look, man. Somebody's coming to see you. Oh, he's got his hackles up. Hey, it's okay. Hi, 755 01:30:06,109 --> 01:30:19,520 man. What's up, bud? Yeah, he's gonna do a couple of minutes of this. What's up? Who am I? Who am 756 01:30:19,520 --> 01:31:02,470 I said to Chris, I have a way to help you and I know I can help you to get out of the 757 01:31:02,470 --> 01:31:07,229 chimps. So let's work together. 758 01:31:09,029 --> 01:31:13,710 Buddy, things are improving. Things are way improving. 759 01:31:13,710 --> 01:31:18,970 It's taken a while though. It's taken a long time. It hasn't been easy. 760 01:31:18,970 --> 01:31:26,890 On August the 10th, 1995, the Dean of NYU Medical Center announced that 761 01:31:26,890 --> 01:31:33,489 Clemson would be closed and I saw I'm going to try and save as many of the 762 01:31:33,489 --> 01:31:40,810 chimps as I can but in a very quiet way secretly 763 01:31:42,810 --> 01:31:49,869 that's where Bob came in through the secret network what's up man who is this 764 01:31:49,869 --> 01:31:56,130 over here who is this over here now who is it this is gonna be your new roommate 765 01:31:56,130 --> 01:32:19,779 How do you think, Midge? I told you it would be nice, didn't I? 766 01:32:20,119 --> 01:32:24,380 Jim Mahoney moved literally 50, 60 chimps. 767 01:32:25,899 --> 01:32:32,920 And we did indeed get two chimps from Lemsip through Mahoney to Black Beauty Ranch. 768 01:32:32,920 --> 01:32:48,500 Midge was a youngish adult male and Lulu was very gentle we immediately went to her defense 769 01:32:48,500 --> 01:32:58,060 and Nim came over very good Lulu she's so good yeah your friend I think Midge and Lulu 770 01:32:58,060 --> 01:33:10,170 really helped him out enormously noises for what's what's the name of this hey I'm Nim's 771 01:33:10,170 --> 01:33:12,010 It means what? Soda pop, I know. 772 01:33:12,550 --> 01:33:15,430 Things were as good as could be expected 773 01:33:15,430 --> 01:33:19,729 based on everything you know that had gone on previous. 774 01:33:20,050 --> 01:33:22,270 Oh, yeah, that's so good, man. Isn't it good? 775 01:33:22,270 --> 01:33:27,909 It wasn't exactly perfect, but it was pretty damn good. 776 01:33:43,060 --> 01:33:46,159 Chimps are truly wonderful animals. 777 01:33:48,020 --> 01:33:51,020 They're very forgiving, the vast majority of them. 778 01:33:56,710 --> 01:33:57,890 They'll forgive you. 779 01:33:58,350 --> 01:33:58,649 Thank you.