Washoe, the chimpanzee who became world-famous after learning sign language and teaching it to other primates, died last week in Washington State. PETA’s Primate Specialist, Debra Durham, wrote this great op-ed about Washoe, and what we can learn from her experience, which appeared in The Saint Paul Pioneer Press yesterday. Check it out:

What We Learned From a Chimp
BY DEBRA DURHAM

Last week, we mourned the loss of an icon - Washoe. She was one of the few chimpanzees people are likely to know by name - in large part because she learned to use American Sign Language. She famously taught it to fellow chimpanzees, and the people who know her best shared stories about her fibs and her apparent sense of humor.


Was it language? It seems that not everyone is convinced, but does that matter? No one disputes that communication took place. Whether human or chimpanzee, Washoe's companions shared and created meaning with her.


Thanks to decades of fieldwork by scientists from around the globe, we know a great deal about chimpanzees like Washoe, who was herself taken from Africa decades ago. In June, scientists explained how chimpanzees would freely choose to help a human if they saw that he or she needed help.


In March, news stories came out about chimpanzees who showed particular kindness and understanding to group members who had cerebral palsy. If we add these to the long list of things once thought to be the special domain of humans - culture, tool use, the capacity for language - the gap between humans and chimpanzees becomes smaller and smaller. We are not identical, but we have a great deal in common.


This isn't altogether surprising as chimpanzees are our closest primate relatives, sharing 98 or 99 percent of our DNA. We've all heard that chimpanzees are smart and that they are an endangered species. But Washoe revealed to us something beyond our broad similarities.


Some people writing about her death have claimed that she changed what it meant to be human - that she changed our society. That, I suppose, is true - but there is more to that lesson. Washoe also helped us see what it means to be chimpanzee. When she spoke her mind, signing about her wants and needs, playing jokes or tricks, showing empathy, she embodied a message of compassion - one that we have not fully heard.


Neither the knowledge of our commonalities with chimpanzees - cognitive, cultural and otherwise - nor their capacity to suffer has inspired adequate protection for these animals. Despite their bright minds and unique personalities, many chimpanzees spend their lives inside small metal laboratory cages, where they endure terror, physical pain and trauma. People may be shocked to learn that laboratories in the United States are allowed to keep chimpanzees in cages about the size of a kitchen table.


In light of the lessons taught by Washoe, her fellow signing apes, and all that we know about chimpanzees, we must now realize that how we currently keep and treat chimpanzees in U.S. laboratories is replete with ethical problems. It's time for the United States to join nations all over the world, from Austria to Liberia and New Zealand, that have banned experiments on chimpanzees. It is the right and compassionate thing to do. I'm sure that Washoe would have signed that she agreed.

Joan Court is 88 years old, and she's been working on behalf of animals for a very long time. Yesterday in Oxford, she made another powerful statement for animals that has already garnered international media attention. Accompanied by members of PETA UK holding signs reading, "Save Felix - Oxford, Stop Primate Torture", Joan donned a prisoner costume and sat in a small cage as she began a 48-hour fast. Joan’s fast is a protest of the vile brain experiments that are being inflicted on a monkey named Felix by a fellow named Tipu Aziz who, in a more civilized society, would have been tried, sentenced, and exiled to some barren desert a very long time ago. PETA UK is asking members of the public to contact Home Secretary John Reid and urge him to release Felix immediately to an accredited sanctuary and stop the expansion of the Oxford animal laboratory. And the redoubtable Joan Court is making a larger point—since this week is World Week for Animals in Laboratories—about the barbaric nature of animal experimentation. Do you really need an octogenarian in a cage to tell you that torturing intelligent primates is wrong? You can read the full story here, but keep Joan in your thoughts today—she's going to be very hungry.