Lucy Temerlin (chimpanzee)

Lucy Temerlin (1964–1987) [Cite book | author= Dale Peterson | title = Chimpanzee Travels: On and Off the Road in Africa | publisher = The University of Georgia Press| location = London | pages = p. 136, 151 | date = 1995 | id = ISBN 0-8203-2489-2] was a chimpanzee owned by the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma, and raised by Maurice K. Temerlin, Ph.D., a psychotherapist and professor at the University of Oklahoma and his wife, Jane W. Temerlin. 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 and eventually learned 140 signs. 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. [cite web |url=http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2007/11/chimps-will-inh.html |title=Chimps Will Inherit the Earth? |author=Pagan Kennedy |publisher=Beacon Press] [cite web |url=http://gelfmagazine.com/archives/the_nipple_fetish.php |title=The Nipple Fetish |author=David Goldenberg |publisher=Gelf Magazine]

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, accompanied by University of Oklahoma psychology graduate student Janis Carter, she was shipped to a chimpanzee rehabilitation center in Gambia, [Cite web |url= http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/carter.html |title= 35 Who Made a Difference: Janis Carter |author= Douglas Foster | publisher= Smithsonian magazine | date= 2005-11-01 | accessdate=2008-03-29] . Lucy's caretaker claims that she was shot and skinned by a poacher, and that her feet and hands were hacked off for sale as trophies. [Cite book | author= Steven M. Wise | title = Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals | publisher = Perseus Books | location = Cambridge, MA | pages = | date = 2000 | id = ISBN 0-7382-0437-4] . However, this is disputed by others who were intimately involved in the rehabilitation because the skeleton, in its advanced state of decomposition, could not provide evidence of poaching over some other cause of death [ [http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/06/11/poacherskilllucy1106.html ANIMAL PEOPLE I Nov. 06 Did poachers really kill Lucy, the sign language chimp? ] ] .

ign 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 feces 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.

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 Psychotherapist's Family" ISBN 0-8314-0045-5
*Wise, Steven M. "Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals", Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA, 2000.