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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 21 June 2018 at 9:16am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

LINK

The story of Clever Hans, the counting horse, kept me from entirely buying into the story of Koko, but it was fun to imagine

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Andrew Bitner
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Posted: 21 June 2018 at 9:37am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Just read this. At 46, she lived a pretty long life and I hope she was comfortable and happy where she was.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 21 June 2018 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I left a U.S. based music forum today I'd practically just returned to because of a thread like this. I posted that Koko was a notorious pet kitten flattener (true) and that I wouldn't "weep for her, bah!!!" :^)

Reported and removed for the protection of the sensitive I guess, by one of the multitude of moderators who complain about how much work they have to do. Maybe they should see who clicks their report buttons over everything and anything, and perhaps remove them, then they might not have to 'work' so much! I had never clicked a report button there, it would take something pretty extreme for me to do so.

I like animals, but there are people who are so over the top mental about every and any kind usually with a human name, raised up to near godhood in all Peta stridency... people are going on about what a great artist this one was too without any sense of humor to it. This gorilla probably lived a more luxurious life than 75% of it's fellow Africans, and horribly enough maybe even longer than that many too.

Is not gravely paying respects to a gorilla so horrible of me? I'm sure she was smarter than Trump at the very least, and many of his 'supporters', but I think the science of it was indeed a bit of a cold fusion. They'd hit a wall early on and tried to make out they hadn't; it became a big sell job to kids and schools (and the gullible). It could've been fun and interesting but instead it became a pillar in a sort of religion, which at it's root has a sort of hate for people (that can be understandable), but she did flatten some kittens whether they want to know about it or not. It had no concept of having caused their deaths and this is what they mean by 'stupid' animals. Count on their nobility and find out what Tim Treadwell did I say. Might as well trust your toddlers with the sweet natured family Pitbull that "couldn't hurt a flea, I know". Yeah, like Trump knew Jong-Un was trustworthy within one minute of meeting or that one black woman who knew in her heart Trump isn't 'really' a racist. Paging P.T. Barnum!
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Michael Penn
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 3:01am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I appreciate that the sensation of Koko helped knock us humans off our presumed evolutionary pedestal, but...

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James Woodcock
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 5:11am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

GDPR (I assume) strikes again so I can't view the link JB posted
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 6:47am | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Just Google "Koko".
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 9:47am | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I vaguely remembered Clever Hans and now I'm glad I googled that story!

The other story about the Kellogg's and their son learning from the chimp more than the chimp learning from us humans is priceless.

We are cousins, but I guess some people do think Darwin's theory means we literally came from the same primates we see around us and we didn't. Australopithecus Afarensis of millions of years ago is more advanced than any apes around now. It's fine that some walk upright briefly (so do bears, and hey, we all know we came from four bears, right) or use twigs as tools to get the tasty termites, and maybe in a couple million more years they will be near Lucy of Olduvai Gorge, but then what might we humans be by then? Maybe wearing silver head-bands and capes with giant craniums (like that dude in Fantastic Four #216)! :^)

The NY Daily News piece like so many other is full of complete bull on those kittens, which Koko herself killed two of and did not show any real understanding of them being dead never mind at her own hand. It really does a disservice that they promote these fanciful lies especially to kids. Talk about made up fake news. It may be want they want to be true. I just watched a doe look around for a week for it's fawn that died right in front of it. You could say the mother is very devoted and loving, or you could say it is just stupid too. It may or may not have been the doe's fault the fawn didn't nurse, but another doe here has two fawns that are both healthy. Bear mothers kill and eat their cubs, not just bear males kill cubs, but people determined to humanize these animals (like Tim Treadwell) project all kinds of morality on mother bears being wonderful and goldlike entities or something. It seems un-PC or forbidden to say things against killer whales (even though they released one that had been captive most of it's life ala Free Willy and it promptly starved to death). These people don't even know who Doctor Spong is who I've followed for decades, they just saw a CNN documentary multiple times so are now experts on orca sufferings. How do we get past the various extremes of animal worship and we get to do anything we want to them?

Seriously, thanks for letting me write this here, it might seem a bit silly or over-thought, but I don't think there is anywhere else I know of where I could without a lot of flak or punishment. Maybe I care about those dead kittens (they kept giving them to her) too much? :^)


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 22 June 2018 at 10:01am
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Daniel Gillotte
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I can't find any corroboration that Koko killed any of her cats. It''s certainly plausible that it happened. It's also plausible that it did not and that she did care for them. Rebecca, can you show your work?

I don't like to see primates in captivity so that always bummed me out about Koko personally.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 1:50pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

It may take awhile for me to find something online because there is the same feel good junk repeated as fact about the emotive Koko empathically showing love yatta yatta everywhere to the point of 10000 to 1. People and kids just really love the fairy-tale, need it badly even. I wouldn't care if I just hadn't followed this story from 1978 when it was in National Geographic. My recall is she accidentally sat on two of the various kittens given her over these many years. They made a lot of something out of those images of the huge primate holding the tiny kitty, all kinds of magazine covers and books, I guess it'd blow the simple story and sales to admit to a couple of collateral casualties?

Doing a search I can see how people repost and retweet and reshare the photos, it must really mean an incredible lot to some. I'll try, it's made harder by all the death of Koko coverage now, but if that doesn't work I'll dig through the old magazines and journals I still have.


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 22 June 2018 at 1:51pm
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 22 June 2018 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I don't know how to screen out all the 'stuff' of the last few days from a search. I can restrict searches to just the last few days but not the opposite. Also many for pages are ones who have paid to get placed at the top of any search.

There are various 'documentaries' being made or have been made, all glowingly positive with the same feel good story, and they still will use Koko to raise a lot of money.

Another update while searching... They are really having Koko say all kinds of 'amazing' things through interpretation of some vague basic sign language including 'noise' signing. It was crying over Robin Williams's suicide whom she 'met' once.

Update: I have to give up the search. The best I can come up with are admissions in some articles she had to be under strict supervision. I stand by two cats having been sat on accidentally. Just seeing it with Mr. Rogers I worry about fools thinking Gorillas actually are loving wonderful creatures they want to live with and love or something, enough dumb folks and those close to them are getting hurt by tigers, boa constrictors and chimpanzees.

It's interesting how few people have ever even had access to Koko the 300lb. gorilla, and possibly far fewer without her human interpreter and 'mother' around.  The claims of vocabulary and sentence making are fairly weak but there does seem to have been some sign-language among what is termed 'noise' signing that fit the circumstances, but the gorilla was rewarded for desired behaviour from age 1. It's never been a normal environment fro a gorilla and learned movements and noises from people. The human 'mother' has claimed all kinds of inspirational or heartfelt messages from Koko such as how bad men should be good to the planet and 'shame' over the WTC attack. The gorilla is supposedly full of love and gentle yet very few people were ever allowed near it for long.

A couple of bits from some article I did find...

"While under strict supervision, Koko is typically allowed to play with and love on the fur babies in her care."

"I don't know how long Lipstick was with Koko or what became of him, but at some point there was a third kitten called Smoky."

If someone wants it to be unthinkable or impossible for a giant ape to have accidentally clobbered a couple smaller creatures permanently that would be their call. It is me vs. literally tens of thousands of copy and paste uncritical websites, junk magazines and tv shows I suppose. :^D


Edited by Rebecca Jansen on 22 June 2018 at 4:30pm
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Dave King
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 3:58am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

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Bill Collins
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Posted: 23 June 2018 at 5:40am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

In an article i read yesterday, it stated that one cat
was run over by a car, and when informed of it`s death,
Koko was able to understand the concept, and was sad.It
made no mention of the fates of any other cats.As with
all news, it`s hard to tell the fact from the fiction
sometimes.
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