RIP, Koko and Ivan. Here's why we need these gorillas right now
Koko, the gorilla who knew American sign language and rated a full-length New York Times obituary after she died in her sleep last week, lived a charmed life, at least compared to what many other captive primates experience.
She certainly had it better than Ivan, Tacoma’s not-quite-so-famous celebrity simian.
Koko flourished during a long life in a gorilla preserve. She wasn’t confined alone in steel-and-concrete pen in a circus-themed shopping mall. She wasn’t the subject of a custody battle, nor did she star in national animal-welfare campaign to end the plight of gorillas in urban captivity.
And yet it’s not a stretch to call Koko a kindred spirit to Ivan, who endured all that drama and more before he was mercifully moved to a zoo 2,650 miles away to spend his golden years.
Ivan died six summers ago. He’s memorialized in a bronze statue outside Tacoma’s Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, where he never had the privilege to live.
While Koko and Ivan never met, they had much in common, including their ability to teach us humans a thing or two about living with grace, sensitivity and tenacity in these troubled times.
Both apes reached a ripe old age: 46 and 50 years old, respectively. Both won the affection of celebrities; Koko was friendly with Mr. Rogers and Robin Williams, while Ivan reportedly was once sought for adoption by Michael Jackson.
Both were keenly intelligent, with Koko gaining world fame for her 2,000-word sign language vocabulary and Ivan impressing handlers with his precocious body language and paintings.
Sadly, both were childless — perhaps because neither was raised in the wild — though each found ways to express caregiver instincts.
Koko gently carried gorilla dolls in her arms and developed a maternal bond with her pet kittens. Ivan was attuned to the emotions of his keepers, gesturing for a paper towel and wiping his eyes to share a moment of heartache.
Their biographies, however, were starkly different. Koko was born at the San Francisco Zoo and lived most of her years among fellow primates at a Gorilla Foundation preserve in the mountains of California. Ivan was born in a Central African forest but was trapped more than half his life behind a window at the B&I store on South Tacoma Way; his last 18 years were spent in contentment among other gorillas at Zoo Atlanta.
Could Ivan be the spirit animal of America's Dreamers, brought to this strange country at a young age, growing up with a sense of otherness and relegated to a long wait for liberty and a lonely pursuit of happiness?
This week, amid a national outpouring of tributes to Koko, one writer observed that America could use a few more of these beautiful creatures right now. Lowland gorillas just might show us the high road, seemingly untraveled in these days when immigrant families are being separated at the border and political incivility reigns.
"At a time when our nation seemed void of compassion, the death of a gorilla that was loved throughout the world reminded us of the importance of empathy,” wrote Dahleen Glanton, columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
We all need those reminders once in awhile. Thank goodness for that Ivan statue.