Lucy the Chimpanzee

Recently we listened to a podcast about two scientists who adopted a chimpanzee. They wanted to do a science experiment to see how human they could make the chimp by raising it as if it was a human. The results to this experiment were quite amazing and very interesting. But the end result was not as happy as the rest of the experiment.
 
In 1964 two scientists, name Maurice and Jane, adopted a new born chimpanzee and named her Lucy. They adopted her for an experiment, they wanted to see how human like they could make a chimpanzee. Maurice and Jane treated her as if she was a baby human, put her in a crib, fed her from a bottle, and made her wear little girl clothes. By age one Lucy was very humanized and by age 4 Lucy was learning how to sign to people. Lucy learned to lie to people just like humans do. Whenever a visitor would come over she would go into the kitchen and make a pot of tea for everyone, but she would do it very casually as if it was a routine or second nature. If Jane got hurt or became sick or was sad, Lucy would take care of her until she was better. One thing that was very unusual and quite interesting is that Lucy would masturbate, she would make herself a gin and tonic and look at Play Girl. The interesting part was the planning and fantasizing that went into it, it was very human like. Then came the time that Lucy was introduced to a male chimpanzee, she was scared of him.
 
As Lucy grew older she became very strong and aggressive, she tore up the house and Jane didn't know what to do. She was eventually shipped to a natural reserve in Gambia, Africa accompanied by a physiology graduate Janis Carter. Janis was one of the only people that could handle Lucy. After a few month Maurice and Jane left Lucy at the reserve with Janis. When her parents left, Lucy wouldn't eat, she lost hair, and got skin infections. After about a year Lucy was introduced to other abandoned chimps, her emotions would rub off on the other chimps. Then all the chimps were released on an abandoned island. Janis stayed on the island with the chimps but the chimps were to attached to her and to her human resources, so she locked herself in a cage so the chimps would leave her alone and after about a year they did. Lucy still wouldn't eat anything on her own, she would only eat it if it was handed to her. Eventually Lucy learned to be a chimpanzee on her own. Janis left, but came back a year later to visit Lucy. Lucy, of course, recognized her right away, she went and gave her a hug. Janis then left again. But a year later came back only to find Lucy dead, skinned by poachers. She was probably killed because she wasn't afraid to approach humans.

The story of Lucy was very touching... she was an amazing chimpanzee that helped lead science to new discoveries. Although the science experiment was amazing with great results, it cause Lucy to become to human which resulted in her having to figure out how to become a chimpanzee on her own because she never had to be one; it also resulted in her death because she was to comfortable around humans. I think that this experiment could have been done a little bit better, by figuring out how to make the end much better with a better result. But over all the discoveries that Lucy led us to were remarkable.