Peacegal's Reviews > Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees

Awe, humor, humility, and sadness are on display in the story of Washoe, the first signing chimpanzee. Fouts takes you into the world of Washoe and her family and traces his journey from a naïve young scientist who never thought about the ethics involved in the 1970s rush to raise baby chimps in human families, to a seasoned advocate for chimpanzees both in captivity and the wild.

Washoe herself is a delight. Imagine an especially clever kindergartener with the strength of multiple human beings. Her antics in the first section of the book will both amaze and humble readers. At the same time, there is a grimness behind it all. Washoe is a piece of property, a laboratory animal kidnapped from her natural habitat and subject to the whims of her owners. She is bought, sold, and transferred—sometimes to pleasant places, other times to conditions that would be considered inhumane for the world’s most violent criminals.

Fouts’s recollections of animal researcher Dr. William Lemmon, Washoe’s owner, are especially disquieting. The animal research community has long insisted their ranks care about animal welfare and don’t wish to cause unnecessary suffering, but the history of the behavior of some prominent researchers sheds light on why people who care about animals tend to distrust these assurances.

In addition to his insights and observations of chimpanzees, the author also makes frequent side-trips into evolution, communication, linguistics and legal personhood, which readers may or may not find interesting depending upon their point of view.

It is notable that this book was published over twenty years ago, so some things have changed for chimps, at least in the United States. When Fouts was writing, chimps were still being subjected to invasive research. Today, invasive research on great apes has mercifully ended (although such research on all other animals, including monkeys, continues), and many chimps have been retired to a sanctuary system (although many more still remain on laboratory property). We even have a quote from a National Institutes of Health spokesperson stating that chimps are “very social and sensitive animals” who deserve a peaceful retirement, conflicting mightily with the NIH’s successful battles against even the most conservative welfare improvements for apes in laboratories twenty and thirty years ago.