Koko calls for a dentist

Imagine having some kind of spicy edible rice-paper cards with soy ink lettering. I like!!

Trying to figure out what this was about by ust reading the posts upthread is mystifying

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/08/koko_kanzi_and_ape_language_research_criticism_of_working_conditions_and.3.html

afkow, Sarah, and other employees have corroborated that both gorillas were fed massive numbers of vitamins and supplements—Safkow estimated Koko received between 70 and 100 pills a day. (The Gorilla Foundation says she currently takes “between 5 to 15 types of nutritional supplements,” as part of a regimen that “many doctors and naturopaths recommend for preventive maintenance.”) Sarah confirms that as part of her job as a food prep specialist, she was responsible for buying these supplements with the discount she received at a grocery store where she worked part-time. “We had to bribe her with all these things she shouldn’t be eating to get her to take these pills,” said Safkow. The list included smoked turkey, pea soup (“very salty,” Safkow pointed out), nonalcoholic beer, and candies. “We tried chocolate once we had tried everything else,” he said. The Gorilla Foundation denied this, yet it also said that chocolate is good for gorillas’ health—that a cardiologist suggested the gorillas eat 85 percent cacao to ward off heart disease and that the supplements given to the gorillas are “natural” and “high in antioxidants, which are powerful boosters of health and longevity.” Research on antioxidant supplements in humans shows no such thing, however, and they may do more harm than good. In any case, it’s not clear how well research on antioxidants applies to gorillas.

According to multiple former employees, these pills were recommended by Gabie Reiter, a woman who calls herself a “certified naturopath and medical intuitive,” who consulted with Patterson on the phone. Reiter’s website advertises, among other services, chakra alignment and removal of pollutants and toxins through telephone “power tune-ups.” “[Patterson] would be on the phone with [Reiter] almost daily, and Penny would use her for the medical and emotional needs for the gorillas,” Safkow says, adding that Reiter “would make adjustments to her homeopathic medication, all without any scientific or veterinary diagnoses recommending that treatment.” The caption for a 2005 photo on Koko’s website describes her as having the option of taking certain homeopathic cures when she asks for them.

The micromanagement included encouraging employees to do things they didn’t feel comfortable with, all in the name of pleasing the gorillas. In the mid-2000s, the Gorilla Foundation was sued by two former employees for sexual harassment. Nancy Alperin and Kendra Keller alleged that Patterson pressured them to show their nipples to Koko. Patterson apparently thought this was for Koko’s benefit; it was alleged in the lawsuit that Patterson once said, “Koko, you see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples. You need to see new nipples. I will turn my back so Kendra can show you her nipples.” The Foundation strongly denied the claims at the time but settled with Alperin and Keller.

Safkow, who worked at the Gorilla Foundation several years after the Alperin and Keller suit was settled, said Koko remained intrigued by nipples. “It was just a given that you show your nipples to Koko,” he said. “Koko gets what Koko wants. We would even hold our nipples hostage from her until she took her pills.” This side of Koko is not presented to outsiders, he says. “It’s different when there’s a big donor. She wants to see their nipples, and points at her nipple and makes a grunting sound—but Penny would spin this to, ‘Nipple sounds like people and what she’s saying is she wants to see more people.’ ” (A similar “sounds like” dialogue appears in the AOL chat transcript from 1998.)

Sounds like Koko belongs in my Weird Animals thread.

RIP koko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7KZV8TWAc

I'm very sad.

:)

RIP Koko, earth angel & fake bird clown pic.twitter.com/8s3rVT8CEN

— Fire Marshal Meaghan (@meaghan_garvey) June 21, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn79Lgfh1hw

She was the best.

Oh man that video with mr rogers my dumb heart.

RIP KoKo :(