Lucy Temerlin
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Lucy Temerlin was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice Temerlin, a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma. Temerlin and his wife raised Lucy as if she were a human child, teaching her to eat with silverware, dress herself, flip through magazines, and sit in a chair at the dinner table. She was taught American Sign Language by primatologist Roger Fouts as part of an ape language project. She appeared in Life magazine, where she became famous for drinking straight gin, rearing a cat, and using Playgirl and a vacuum cleaner for sexual gratification.
Fouts has written that he would arrive at Lucy's home at 8:30 every morning, when Lucy would greet him with a hug, take the kettle, fill it with water, find two cups and tea bags, and brew and serve the tea.
By the time she was 12, the Temerlins were no longer able to care for her, and she was shipped to a chimpanzee rehabilitation center in Senegal, then flown to Gambia, where she was shot and skinned by a poacher. Her feet and hands were hacked off for sale as trophies. [1]
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[edit] Sign language
Lucy was observed lying, something that was once considered uniquely human, because it is evidence of a sense of self. In this sign-language conversation, Fouts asks Lucy about a pile of chimpanzee excrement on the floor:
Fouts: WHAT THAT?
Lucy: WHAT THAT?
Fouts: YOU KNOW. WHAT THAT?
Lucy: DIRTY DIRTY.
Fouts: WHOSE DIRTY DIRTY?
Lucy: SUE (a graduate student).
Fouts: IT NOT SUE. WHOSE THAT?
Lucy: ROGER!
Fouts: NO! NOT MINE. WHOSE?
Lucy: LUCY DIRTY DIRTY. SORRY LUCY.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Wise, Steven M. Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
[edit] References
- Fouts, Roger. (1998) Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees ISBN 0-380-72822-2
- Temerlin, Maurice. (1976) Lucy: Growing Up Human: A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapists Family ISBN 0-8314-0045-5
- Wise, Steven M. Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000.
