Lucy and Janis

Lucy from Radiolab on Vimeo.


Tonight ,I listened to this amazing,but tragic story of Lucy,the chimpanzee

Lucy the chimpanzee was raised as a human in the 1970s and 80s by Dr. Maurice and Jane Temerlin. Black and white images of Lucy with the Temerlins from Dr. Temerlin's now out-of-print book, "Growing up Human,' courtesy of Science and Behavior Books, Inc. Photos of Lucy in Gambia courtesy of Janis Carter. Slideshow produced by Sharon Shattuck.

Lucy ,the chimpanzee had great difficulty separating from the Temerlins who raised her in captivity. She struggled with identifying herself with the life of a chimp after eleven years of living in a human household. She became very attached to Janis Carter, a graduate student who cleaned her cage while she lived with the Temerlins. Janis acclimatized Lucy back to chimp life on an island off Gambia.Janis ,herself had to at times eat ants to show Lucy what appropriate chimp behavior was.Janis had to isolate herself from Lucy by living in a cage herself,so she would go to live with fellow chimps. Janis walked the fine line of facilitating Lucy's survival in the wild,but also supporting her independence.Lucy,at the end because of her gregarious tendencies towards humans, probably got too close to one who experienced her as threat and ended her very complicated life.Nature and its inhabitants should be left to live freely without our constant meddling.