Monkey See Monkey Do
There are some similarities in nature, although rarely discovered, that leave even the most prestigious scientists in awe. The story of Lucy, a chimpanzee adopted by the Temerlins as a study focusing on the behavior of chimpanzees and the similarities in their development to humans, was one of these scientific breakthroughs.
The Temerlins adopted Lucy from a chimpanzee belonging to a circus, and took her home in hopes of raising her as they would a child. The Temerlins taught Lucy how to behave like a human, showing her how to use silverware, flip through magazines, and use American sign language. The most amazing fact of this was that Lucy did, in fact, accomplish all of these completely human tasks and several more. At one point, Lucy even felt comfortable grabbing Gin from the cabinet and pleasuring herself while flipping through the pages of a Playgirl.
Years passed, and the Temerlins were amazed at the progress Lucy had made. But Lucy was almost twelve, and well past the age most owners kept a chimpanzee. This troubled the Temerlins, but they desperately tried to hold on to their adopted child for as long as they could. Eventually, at the height of Lucy's discontent and at the end of their rope, the Temerlins traveled with the chimpanzee to a rehabilitation center in Gambia, where Lucy would spend the rest of her days.
Accompanied by Janis Carter, the Temerlins felt comfortable leaving the chimpanzee in the caring hands of their at-the-time housekeeper. Carter expected to stay with Lucy for a few weeks, but it seems that would not be the case. After almost three years, and a long time of living in a remote island in a cage, Carter was released from the experience of turning a now "human" chimpanzee back into a wild being. The effects of the Temerlins' time with Lucy showed in her inability to successfully return to nature. After Lucy finally adjusted to her native environment, Carter would come to visit the island Lucy and other human-raised chimpanzees lived on. Sadly, on one of these trips, Lucy was found dead just a small bit away from the camp she and Carter shared for the many years, seeming to have been killed by poachers. It seemed that in the end, Lucy's openness towards humans would be her first and final downfall.
Lucy shared an immense amount of knowledge with us on the subject of relativity between humans and chimpanzees, and paved the road to understanding development and adaptability to natural circumstances. Without Lucy, we would have never achieved such beneficial results, and would have been without a heart-touching story that tells the story of unique bonds between humans and animals.
"Monkey see, monkey do." Something we can learn about human nature from the Lucy story is that human nature seems so complex, but in reality can be adopted by the simple repetition and copying of simple actions. We often take the gift of our reality for granted, but after seeing the story of Lucy I'm reminded how the path to human-ness isn't always a straight-forward one, and some things we adopt in our lifetime couldn't be dropped from our nature in a thousand years.
After this story, I have a different view on chimpanzees, for I see that they are incredibly intelligent beings that can adopt human nature and live to the majority of the extent that most modern humans do. The Temerlin's experiment was worthwhile, for it gave us an insight into the nature of chimpanzees and connected a long lost bridge between humans and animals. The end Lucy's story is not justified and leaves the reader wondering why Lucy would approach the poachers, but it goes a long way to show how too much exposure to a human lifestyle can be harmful to an animal, and should be taken into account in any further animal experiments.
So for some reason this guy came up under the Google search "Lucy Chimpanzee," so I thought I'd just leave him here. Thank you.
