Day 251 - Book Report - The Story of Nim

All those books that I had shipped to Qatar because I understood there would be nothing to do there came in very handy in Moldova. It isn't that there was nothing to do in Moldova, but that first winter was so cold in our hotel suite I spent much of spare my time wrapped up in blankets to keep warm. With only local TV in Russian or Romanian available and then only a few hours a day, reading was one of the only activities possible.

I had philosophy books, psychology books, sociology books, linguistics books as well as a few novels. While I was in graduate school, I just couldn't resist a textbook with a catchy title or interesting cover. But I never found time or motivation to read them. . . until a cold winter in Moldova.

Image of young chimpanzee by SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent)
via Flickr.com

One of the books I finally got around to reading was the story of Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanze raised by humans in New England as part of a Columbia University research project led by Dr. Herbert Terrace to determine if chimpanzees could learn to use language, specifically American Sign Language (ASL). The book covered the five years of the project which began in in 1973. The book must be one I picked up later, probably ordered though one of the pre-Amazon book catalogs that were such welcome items in my mail slots in Doha and Bridgetown. I know why I found the book interesing: Nim's name was a clever twist on the name of one of the foremost linguists of the mid-twentieth century, Noam Chompsky, the father of transformational grammar. We read a lot of his work in the masters program at San Franciso State.

Earlier this week I watched the movie, Project Nim, that told the rest of the story, and it was heart-breaking. For the first year of the project, there was no structure. Nim lived with a blended family of several children and a researcher mother and poet father. He played with the children and loved holding the family's kitten. But he wasn't being exposed to ASL, so the Dr. Terrace moved Nim and the team of researchers to a country home owned by the university. The project continued and the initial thoughts were that Nim's rapid acquisition of ASL signs indicated he was learning to use language. In the end, however, Dr. Terrace concluded that all Nim had learned was how to use signs to get what he wanted from the humans around him. As he got larger and more powerful, the project was shut down and Nim was brought back to the Primate Center in Oklahoma where he was born. And that is where the story turned ugly.

Image of an angry adult chimpanzee by wordman1,
via Flickr.com

Instead of being surrounded by people, Nim was put into a cage with other chimps. Until that moment, Nim had never seen another chimpanzee. Two of the people who worked at the Primate Center, Lily and Bob, took steps to become the human friends Nim was used to being among. Nim helped them with tasks such as sweeping and washing out the cages with a hose. Bob continued to communicate with Nim using ASL as well as taking Nim from the cage so the two of them could play, one of Nim's favorite signs. Bob didn't accept Dr. Terrace's conclusion that Nim wasn't using language.

Dr. Terrace came to see Nim once. Nim appeared to be very happy to see him, but the next day after Dr. Terrace left, Nim was withdrawn and depressed. Dr. Terrace never returned.

Not long after Nim returned to the Primate Center, the center was losing money and the owner agreed to sell the chimps to New York University's Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). The manager of LEMSIP admitted that drug experiments on animals would always be harmful, but the FDA required that drugs be tested on animals before they could be ruled safe for use on humans.  Bob was not going to allow Nim to be shipped off to be used for experiments. Through some unexpected twists and turns, Nim ended up at Black Beauty Ranch, a refuge for horses and other hooved animals in Texas. He was no longer surrounded by chimpanzees. Instead, he was all alone.

Image of the word love in American
Sign Language by Cindy Andrie,
via Flickr.com

In spite of Bob's role at getting Nim out of the Primate Center, the operator of Black Beauty Ranch told him he would have Bob arrested if he showed up at the ranch.

As much as the staff of the ranch tried to make Nim comfortable by giving him toys to play with and a two-story house that looked a lot like a cage, he didn't want to stay in his house. He wanted to be in the human house. He was big and strong enough to be able to get out of his cage and into the house. But he was also dangerous when in the house. When confronted by a barking dog, Nim picked him up and tossed him against the wall, killing the dog. He also picked up furniture and tossed it out windows.

The mother of the family where Nim first lived came with her daughter to see him at the ranch. When they arrived, Nim acted very aggitated. The mother entered the cage. Nim grabbed her and swung her around cage with enough force to kill her, but he stopped short and left her on the floor. She suffered a concussion and has no memory of what Nim did.

Bob didn't give up. When he learned that NYU was planning to close LEMSIP and that a new owner had taken over Black Beauty Ranch, he worked with others to remove the chimps from LEMSIP surreptitiously so they could be moved to Black Beauty Ranch. Finally, Nim would have companions in an environment where living out their lives was the only expectation.

The obvious conclusion from the story of Nim is that any experimentation on animals, even when it may initially appear to be benign or even beneficial, is harmful. I cannot think of a stronger statement demanding the ethical treatment of animals than the story of Nim.