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Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Tell Us About Who We Are

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Roger Fouts has written an extraordinary book that combines insight with scientific fact as he relates his experiences with a special chimpanzee who changed the direction of his life. As a graduate student in experimental psychology at the University of Nevada, Fouts is given an assistantship to "teach a chimpanzee to talk" using modified American Sign Language, and thus begins his introduction to impishly clever Washoe. Washoe is in almost every sense a "person", with specific character traits, likes and dislikes, habits and methods. When she is in danger of being dumped into a medical facility at the end of the study, Fouts fights to protect her against the woefully inadequate laws and accepted scientific procedures. His battle not only for Washoe but for all captive chimpanzees becomes the focus of his career. Because Washoe and her companions have the ability to express themselves, this is at times a heartbreaking tale as Fouts and the reader discover how closely related chimps and humans truly are. Through his passionate storytelling and his breadth of knowledge, Fouts gives readers an intimate glimpse into these fascinating non-human lives.

I cannot express adequately how moving and instructive this account is. It will affect you on a deeply emotional level - I can't imagine how anyone can emerge from this story unchanged. I highly recommend this book for all readers, from teenagers to adults, from casual to serious readers.

"Next of Kin: My Conversations with Chimpanzees" is one of the most amazing, heartbreaking, and inspirational books I've ever read. The book is written by Roger Fouts, a primatologist who devoted his life to studying the language patterns of chimpanzees. While in graduate school, Roger was introduced to Washoe, a precocious young chimp who became fluent in American Sign Language. Eventually "Project Washoe" expanded to include many chimpanzees, all who learned to communicate with humans using ASL and demonstrated unique personalities, complex emotions, and astounding intelligence.

I've always been a big animal lover, but reading this book taught me so many things that I never knew before. Anyone who questions an animal's ability to think or feel will get a sharp reality check after reading this book. Chimpanzees are people, too, just as much as human beings are. Unfortunately, the majority if humans in this world don't agree with that logic, and thousands of animals, including chimpanzees, are routinely kidnapped from their natural habitats and bred in captivity for the sole purpose of participating in biomedical research. In many cases, medical laboratories house animals in appalling conditions and literally torture them to death. "Next of Kin" details the horrors that go on behind closed doors at biomedical laboratories, and chronicles the steps Fouts and other animal activists have taken to protect chimpanzees from being treated inhumanely.

I absolutely loved this book. Reading it made me feel close to Washoe and her chimpanzee friends, even though I never met any of them before. (Sadly, Washoe passed away last fall at the age of 42, but I hope to visit members of her family at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in Washington someday.) Parts of this book are incredibly depressing and difficult to read, but hopefully learning about the terrible ways animals are treated will inspire people to take action. I admire everything that Fouts, his family, and his colleagues have done to protect chimpanzees, who are our next of kin on the great evolutionary scale. I hope other readers get as much out of this book as I did.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I could hardly put it down. It is the autobiographical story of a graduate student who wanted to be a clinical psychologist working with children, but who didn't have either the grades or the money to get into a first-tier Ph.D. program. His advisor suggested that he apply to the University of Nevada, where he was admitted to the department of experimental psychology, a far cry from clinical. For money, they offered him a half-time assistantship, working for Allen and Beatrix Gardner, researchers who were trying to teach a chimpanzee to talk. His interview with Allen Gardner did not go well and he was sure he wasn't going to get the job, but after the interview ended he was asked if he would like to see the chimp.

"As we approached the fenced-in nursery school, I saw two adults playing with a child in the shade of a tree. At least I thought it was a child. When the child saw us coming she leapt up and began hooting. Then she began sprinting in our direction--on all fours. We were only a few yards from the four-foot-high fence now. Washoe continued to speed toward us and, without breaking stride, vaulted over the fence and sprang from the top rail. What happened next amazes me to this day. Washoe did not jump onto Allen Gardner as I had expected. She leapt into my arms."

He got the job. He didn't know anything about chimpanzees, especially about changing diapers on an infant chimp, and he didn't know anything about American Sign Language, but he learned fast. For the next several years he was part of a project to teach ASL to Washoe and to demonstrate that a nonhuman animal could learn a natural, human language. They didn't treat Washoe the way animals are usually treated by researchers. They raised her in a human family situation and treated her as a human child. They spoke no English in her presence--only ASL. They wanted to see if she would learn it the way a child learns language. She did, and in the process challenged the almost unanimous conceptions of scientists, linguists and philosophers about the uniqueness of language in humans.

The Washoe project came to an end about the same time as Fouts was finishing his dissertation. The Gardners had arranged to send Washoe to the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma. They asked Fouts to go along to take care of her. So for the second time he had Washoe to thank for getting him a job. But the situation in Oklahoma was not a happy one. For the first time in his life Fouts was introduced to the cruel conditions to which animals are routinely subjected in animal research and he found himself in the situation of protector of Washoe who he had always treated as a human child. Unfortunately, he was a young, inexperienced Ph.D. up against a powerful professor with a wide reputation. For the next 10 years or so he would have to use all his wits to survive and to protect the chimps under his care. He wasn't always able to succeed.

While in Oklahoma, Fouts came in contact with an autistic child and his work with Washoe led him to a remarkable discovery. He realized that the child might not be able to coordinate his auditory experience with his visual experience and that might be why he couldn't communicate with others. So Fouts tried teaching sign language to the autistic child and in a couple of months the child was communicating with others for the first time in his life. His behavior also changed. He stopped screaming and rocking and started making eye contact with people. More remarkably, a few weeks after he started learning ASL, he started to speak in English. This led Fouts to begin theorizing about the origins of language, which is discussed at some length in this book.

The situation in Oklahoma got worse and worse for the chimpanzees and Fouts began seeking an escape. Eventually he found a sanctuary in Central Washington University and built a home for Washoe and other chimps there--the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, where the chimps live free from human domination. Graduate students who work with them can do so only if the chimps agree. (Remember, I am talking about talking chimpanzees here!) Fouts says that sometimes a graduate student will complain that he can't get the chimps to cooperate in a study and Fouts just says "Too bad. Think up a study that's more fun."

As you might have guessed, Fouts became an animal rights activist. To him, his wife and his children, who grew up with Washoe, Washoe has always been considered a person. He says "Of all the people who visit Washoe's family, deaf children are the first to recognize the chimpanzee as our next of kin. To see a deaf child, who struggles daily to be understood by fellow humans, talking animatedly in sign with a chimpanzee is to recognize the absurdity of the age-old distinction between 'thinking human' and 'dumb animal'. When deaf children look at Washoe, they don't see an animal. They see a person. It is my fondest hope that, one day, every scientist will see as clearly."

Teaching a chimp to use a natural language, bringing an autistic child out of his isolation, and fighting for animal rights are not Fouts only remarkable achievements. He also demonstrated that an animal who used ASL would also teach it to her child. Washoe taught Loulis to speak.

I remember first hearing about Washoe back in the early 70s, I think, but reading a popular science magazine article about her is nothing like reading this first hand account. As the introduction by Jane Goodall says, this book "has all the elements of a truly great novel--adventure, heartbreak, the stuggle against evil, courage, and, of course, love."

In doing research for a journalism assignment, I was recommended Fouts' "Next of Kin." I read the book as I prepared for a trip to the Center for Captive Chimpanzee Care, a sanctuary of hope in southern Florida for chimpanzees rescued from labs and similar monstrosities, funded by Jane Goodall and other good people. It was a superb introduction to what I was about to witness, and I ended up using a lengthy quote from the book as an epigram to my article about the sanctuary.

Fouts has given an incredible and heart wrenching insight into a world we too often choose to ignore - the world side by side to our own "civilized" one, the world of the animal kingdom. It is, perhaps, our view of it as a separate world from our own that first gets us into trouble. The human being is an arrogant being. We like to think that we are the superior beast - the thinking, feeling, building, progressive being that rules the earth - but so often the human being is not so superior at all, but only... a beast. Fouts takes that arrogance down several notches. He reveals the remarkable intelligence of the chimpanzee mind. He reveals the astounding emotional depth of the chimpanzee heart. He unveils the tragic suffering of the chimpanzee life when we forget these emotional and intellectual capacities. In a time when scientific strides in all fields - space exploration, medical, or other - can easily be made without the torment of our animal brethren, this book bears witness to our human cruelty and argues effectively for an abandonment of such treatment forever. We are not, after all, a superior creature on this planet. We are only one among many, sharing a global environment to which all of our varied species have a right to live in, enjoying our freedom to live our lives without the threat of enslavement by others - human or animal.

This book was a joy to read. I attended Central Washington University in the eighties and had a chance to tour the old lab. The chimps, as so well described in this book, are filled with life and personality. Dr. Fouts has made an amazing contribution to our knowledge of ourselves and the world we live in. This book is part autobiography, part science, and mostly a plea for a more humane treatment of an animal far closer to us than many are comfortable in admitting.

This book weaves together behavioral research, child psychology, linguistics, oncology, evolution, animal rights and a simple story of two friends who each learn incredible things from the other. The story was so intriguing no matter what topic was being covered that I read all 400 pages in 3 1/2 days. At the risk of sounding melodramatic I literally laughed out loud at points, and broke down in tears at others. Next of Kin demonstrates what man can do at his best as well as his worst.

After reading Fout's Next Of Kin I was speechless. I can express how wonderful it is to learn from an indivdual whose humility, concern for life and compassion is his life work. I simply could not put the book down! It was one of the most thoughtful, eye-opening, and educated books that I have ever read. Having the opportunity to listen to Roger Fouts speak on booktour, my heart opened to his message of compassion; his willingness to express his feelings and experiences to a group of strangers further enhanced my view of this incredible individual. A book that will change your life and the way you see our next of kin and the fellow animals of this world.

"Next of Kin" is really several stories interwoven into one book. It is first and foremost the story of a chimp, Washoe, but also of the journey on which she takes Roger Fouts. The story of Washoe and the other chimps in her extended family are the most engaging aspects of the book, but Fouts' career and personal development alongside them is interesting as well.

Intellectually, Fouts is at his strongest when he describes his language development research and the scientific debates that raged around it. The ethical links between ape intelligence and ape rights were also well developed. His stances on animal rights for other species were not as well motivated and in some sense undermine the justifications he put forth for an end to the use of great apes in research.

While at times oversentimental, Fouts does strike a chord emotionally as well as intellectually. Our "next of kin" are lucky to have him on their side.

A friend who had visited CHCI in Ellensburg recommended that I read Roger's book. I bought it, and could not put it down. Other reviewers have stated that reading Next of Kin "changed their lives", and while that is extraordinarily high praise for a book, I can also say that it did the same for me. Roger's genius is that he so eloquently mixes scientific knowledge with a deeply compassionate and humane philosophy. He leaves the reader much more knowledgeable about the amazing intellectual capabilities of the chimpanzee, but also deeply touched and disturbed at how we as humans treat our next of kin. It is quite true that you will laugh out loud at the exploits of Washoe, Loulis, Tatu, Dar and Moja, but you will also be stunned at the cruelty that they, and especially the thousands of other chimpanzees unlucky enough to NOT find refuge at CHCI or another sanctuary, have endured. Hopefully, you will want to take action after reading this account, and hope is exactly what Roger ends his amazing tale with, envisioning a day when his grandchildren will visit the african jungle, come face to face with the grandchildren of Washoe's wild sisters, and reach across our common 6 million year old evolutionary divide. Not to enslave or to destroy our sibling rivals, but to embrace our next of kin.

After reading Next of Kin, I travelled to Ellensburg and had the honor of meeting Roger, and of spending two enlightening weeks with he, Debbie, the CHCI staff, and, of course, Washoe, Loulis, Tatu and Dar. It was a lifechanging experience, and I owe it to this wonderful book.

No matter your philosophy on the feelings and intellect of animals, this book will change it. I believe that animals have emotions and cognitive skills, but this book really enhanced and helped direct my own personal creed.
The book tells story of a young grad student who falls into a cross-fostering experiment with a young chimpanzee named Washoe. Two professors are raising her as a human child and teaching her sign language. Fouts ends up as Washoe's lifelong caretaker and friend, traveling with her as she is moved from university to university, trying to protect her against a system that views her as an unfeeling piece of property. Along the way other chimpanzees join him and Washoe, until he has a small family of chimps, all capable of sign language, to care for.
The book is remarkable for many reasons. The narrative is interesting, clearly explained, and easy to read, even when Fouts discusses the physiology of language and evolution. The story is fascinating, the antics of the chimps are hilarious and eye-opening, and Fouts' journey to find Washoe and her family a good home (from Reno to Oklahoma to Washington) is determined and inspiring. The subject matter is phenomenal. Reading about Washoe's son, Loulis, learning sign language from her (the first animal to be taught a human language by another animal), the interactions between the chimps and humans (Lucy, who brews tea and serves it to Fouts every morning) and the brief legal history of the chimpanzees as research subjects, is incredible.
Read this book with an open mind. It will change you.