Read More: Nim Chimpsky

Last summer a few of my friends and I instituted a yearly book giving holiday. Josh's gift book for me was Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess. A few years before this, for one reason or another, I made a vow to make Josh cry. I'm assuming he secretly decided to reciprocate the challenge and that's why he sent me this book. We had previously discussed the heart wrenching This American Life episode with chimp island, so he knew exactly what gets this shriveled old heart aching. Although he didn't succeed in making me cry on the outside, my insides were shuddering in paroxysms of anguish.

Nim Chimpsky is the story of a chimp who is raised by humans and taught sign language for research purposes. He continually bonds with his human families, teachers and handlers who all abandon him at some point or another. After a few years the research project ends abruptly and sends poor little Nim back to the chimp farm where he was born. Having grown up in houses with furniture, brushing his teeth in the morning and wearing clothes, he is thrown into a bare, concrete floored cage and forced to figure out how to act like a chimp. At his new home he is again used for ASL research, until they run out of money and Nim is sent to a medical research facility. Eventually he is rescued (he is luckily a famous chimp by now) and sent to a sanctuary where he faces more troubles. His ending is better than I thought it would be, but still a far from desirable life.

Had Jane Goodall not already convinced me that monkeys and apes are not supposed to be pets, this book would have convinced me. Not even a little spider monkey for me, no matter how much I yearn for one.

All of this took place in the 60's and 70's, I believe. I figured biomedical research on apes had been illegal for some time, but I decided to go to the PETA website to check on that. And there on the homepage was a link to a video stating that the US and one other teeny country in Africa are the only countries in the world that still conduct invasive experiments on chimps.  Of course.

- Megan Leigh