Mailonline, August 4, 2012
Intelligent and inquisitive, chimpanzees have always been able to communicate with man.
But this heartbreaking video shows just how desperate this chimp is to be understood and to be let out of his cage.
The chimp is seen in the video motioning to a watching visitor to unlock the bolt on what appears to be a glass door and lift the window, so he can be free.
The YouTube user who uploaded the video claims that the monkey wanted to escape and was telling him to twist open the bolts.
Helping hand: The chimpanzee desperately tries to communicate with the human visitor.Tapping on the window the chimp repeatedly urges people standing on the other side of the glass to let them outside.
It links its fingers together, a signal similar to the American Sign Language representation of the word ‘gate’.
Alex Bailey from Manchester, who recorded the interaction at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, interprets the signs as a direction to free the chimp, The Telegraph reported.
One chuckling man taps on the window and copies the chimp’s actions, mimicking the animal’s mimes of opening the window.
A bystander can be heard giggling and saying: ‘He wants us to open it’.
But the chimpanzee is more focused on trying to make itself understood, as it longingly looks at the people in front of him.
Let me out! The chimp seems to make a sign that is similar to ASL’s gate gesture
Communicating: The video shows the visitor mimicking the chimp’s hand motions.
Understand me! The chimp points to its hands as it attempts to make itself understood.The video, which lasts around 48 seconds, was filmed at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, according to The Telegraph.
If it is communicating with sign language, it is not the first chimpanzee to do so.
Washoe was a female chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language.
The animal, who died in 2007, learnt 350 words, and taught her adopted son Loulis.
Other chimpanzees were later taught 150 or more signs, which they were able to combine to form messages.
Chimpanzees and humans share many similarities and they are believed to be our closest relative in the animal kingdom.
Chimpanzees communicate using a variety of grunts, screams and other sounds.
Most of their communication, however, is done through gestures and facial expressions.
Many of their facial expressions – surprise, grinning, pleading, comforting – are very similar to humans.
Humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than other apes, since the ape chromosomes 2 and 4 have fused into a large chromosome (which contains remnants of the centromere and telomeres of the ancestral 2 and 4) in humans.
Chimpanzees are often incorrectly called monkeys, but are in the great ape family just like us. The other great apes are orangutans and gorillas.
Human brains have a high surface area because they are much more wrinkled than chimpanzee brains, with greater numbers of connections.
These and a larger frontal lobe, allow us a greater capacity for abstract and logical thought.
Heartbreaking, and all animals, whether “similar to us” or not, are just as sensitive, in need of freedom to live life as what they are, to not be slaves or entertainment or “food” or any sort of “tools” for people. People’s failure to realize and act on this basic fact of life says “humanity” all along has been a dismal, wicked, failure. Willful ignorance. Only when we all wake up and give life the reverence it deserves will we deserve the respect and awe we’ve always falsely claimed are ours simply for the fact of being part of this opportunistic (parasitic) species. I think our basic most important goal as animal activists is to gain real human dignity and goodness at last, so naturally we’re vilified for this, ironically enough.
Why shouldnt this chimp want out ? … it is only through human ignorance that they are kept in such enclosures !
absolutely heartbreaking… boycotting places that imprison animals is the way to take away the money they need to continue… educating those who do go is imperative
Wow! I don’t know how this little one could possibly be more clear. Almost seems like the great ape tribes are stepping up to confront humanity’s deliberate blindness. This also illustrates human cognitive dissonance regarding the wider implications of what IS seen. I wonder how much of an awakening ultimately transpired in the witnessing humans.
Set the captives free!
Heartbreaking !!! Wild animals belong in the wild, unless for preservation of their life they are better off in captivity, where hopefully they can be used to educate people against cruelty to animals. Animals that have been maltreated by humans ie tigers in China, bile farms for bears & elephants from circuses wouldn’t stand a chance of defending themselves in the wild.
this is sad for both species. sad that the chimp is so desperate for freedom and sad that the human is such a dumb arse!
The poor darling! it is so sad! They think it is funny but there is nothing funny about it.
I saw this video a few days ago and cried my eyes out for him. It’s infuriating that people find this funny.
free him!! please…
Alice. S. :Would a petition do any good? to free him and send him back to where he belongs or a sanctuary??!!
that in addition to pressure through sympathetic local media coverage and protests might help
I googled the zoo in wales uk and i found this http://www.welshmountainzoo.org/2012/08/sign-language-chimp-the-truth/
what do you think?
Oh God this is nauseating, classic speciesist condescension. The slave can’t really speak or read or write, it only looks that way; in fact, the slave is happy in our care, and we zoos provide a wonderful service by rescuing endangered animals and providing them a great home — with all the amenities and “enrichment” they need such as a toy doll or ball. The slave is much better off here with us than in the wild jungles where there is danger with poachers and other animals. So you see, this whole thing has been blown out of proportion. She doesnt want to be free, she wants to stay here, in her “enriched” environment, where she can be a spectacle for fatass meat-eaters and their video cameras and loud-mouthed kids — this we call “education.” Typical crap and certainly not a rigorous contribution to the debate over whether chimps have a bona fide language, self-consciousness, culture, etc. Just zoo propaganda to justify enslavement of our closest biological relatives. That chimp wants freedom and deserves to be set free — or liberated.
I would guess that the truth is somewhere in between anthropomorphizing (sp?) the Tuppence’s behavior and the pap the zoo puts out. It’s very easy for humans to project our feelings on an animal, especially if we don’t know that much about their natural behavior. I write this as a committed animal advocate myself. I’ve learned from hands-on experts, who are advocates themselves, how easy it is to assume we know what the animal is feeling and is trying to do. The zoo has a plausible explanation — about the gap in the window where people used to push twigs through for Tuppence. They may well have a good — for a zoo — enrichment program but that begs another question: why do the chimps *need* an enrichment program? It’s because the zoo can’t supply the same complexity and challenges a chimp would find in its natural habitat. One also has to wonder how the chimps enjoy living in the Welsh climate.
True, but it is not anthropomorphizing to attribute to animals a desire for freedom from human manipulation, contro, and imprisonment and for freedom as they define and construct it. If you take it that far you play right into the hands of the industrial speciesists who manage zoos, aquariums, factory farms, and so on, and prattle on about how “content” these animals are in human “care” and safe from predation and don’t even have to work for food, etc. See my essay on animal agency and resistance: https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/animal-agency-resistance-rebellion-and-the-struggle-for-autonomy/.
As we ARE animals, everything about us has animalic origins, including our desire for freedom and rebellion against oppression, and when one finds genuine psychological/social/behaviorial continuties, this is not anthropomorphism, but phenemonological exploration and illumination.
Anthropomorphizing was the wrong word — sorry. It’s rather what I said — misreading what we see and projecting our own emotions, desires, fears, etc., on animals. I agree that animals have the same range of emotions that humans do; it’s just that it’s easy, especially if we don’t know that much about an animal, to project ourselves on them. That can be not as harmful as the other extreme but not helpful. We need to remember that chimpanzees, for example, are not small humans in hairy suits but that they have their own ways of experiencing and perceiving the world. It’s also easy to misread — and I’m not saying that people are misreading Tuppence’s behavior here — when we see only a small clip. I am writing all this because I think it’s important that we animal advocates are as accurate and factual as possible. Pure emotion will not advance our cause.
Ignorance & stupidity, rather than malice, on the part of those people laughing at this baby. They would laugh at a human infant displaying similar needs – e.g. to be lifted over a safety gate. Difference being, this particular child is imprisoned in an unnatural, unloving, unstimulating environment.
There is no longer any need for ignorance. My heartbreak is exceeded by my anger!
Now who are the intelligent and who the stupid??? Only a stupid brainless being can just stand staring, giggle and do NOTHING about what`s going on!!! When will this hell-nightmare
end????
!!!!
Reblogged this on My Blog spiritandanimal.wordpress.com.
Not knowing the reason for his imprisonment to begin with – I can’t help but figure that the chimp is shaking his head in disbelief that the human on the other side can be so helplessly stooopid! “Free me!” … (“you brute idiot!”) – It’s always the ones on the outside of cages that are the most dangerous. Pathetic.