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Thank support for Alaska Public Media comes from James with Discovery home inspection helping Alaskans buy homes with confidence he touring online booking at Discovery inspect dot com Thanks so much for listening to k s k Anchorage f.m. 91 point one hey I'm Richard Nelson an elder from the call Yukon Athabaskan village of who sleep I once told me this what you give away comes back to you Well if that's true for moose meat or caribou it's also true for the gift of good radio your support keeps the music the news the public events the whole beautiful community of Alaska coming back to you and pledge your membership now I'm Judith Bender Skee I encourage you to make your contribution to Alaska public media right now by calling 550-8484 or on line at Alaska public dot au r.g.b. . Hi I'm Richard Nelson for Encounter program of observations experiences elections on the world around us well this is our rare encounters program big. Because it was recorded indoors it's a presentation given at the annual whale fest symposium in Sitka Alaska and it's about the amazing fragile miracle. That. People gather here to celebrate some of the most charismatic animals that were lucky enough to share the world with such as humpback whales and killer whales great white sharks and polar bears Well I'm not going to talk about any of those but I have to say that I'm absolutely convinced that salmon are one of the greatest miracles of the living world. Well of course every summer here in Alaska we get to witness this amazing natural spectacle salmon thronging into the bay as an inland into the rivers and channels into the lakes and slews along virtually the entire 34000 miles of Alaska's convoluted coastline millions upon millions of salmon like living stars swarming toward us from the dark universe of the sea it seems like everything in nature celebrates when the salmon arrived I just want to play a little track of what it sounds like when the salmon are in. Well this was recorded along perfectly means salmon Lake Creek very close to city here there's a volley go there's Ravens there's gulls and the thrashing of the fish. The run of the salmon is a treat not only for the eyes but also for our ears and imagine the salmon entering into Fish Creek and the cotton lake down at the southernmost edge of Southeast Alaska. Northward along the coast massing into the keen river into the Taku river the Chilkoot the sea Tuck river the Copper River great schools of salmon along the entire coast north of there Sue sit in a river the casino loft in an ill chick in Cook Inlet and along the Kenai salmon in the streams along the entire Aleutian chain that stretches for a 1000 miles west and ending in the last one in the peaceful river on at to Ireland salmon. Huge pools of salmon funneling into the rivers of Bristol Bay and the Bering Sea the new ship gak the mulch the Custer quim of course in the Yukon salmon on up toward the Arctic Kobach river the no attack river and the river and then all the way around Point Barrow on eastward to the sun about a river over near the Canadian border on the North Slope the river names shape our vision of Alaska's beauty and abundance and they speak of what's come to us every year for millennia from the salmon all 5 species of Pacific salmon each one known by 2 common names the chum salmon also called Dog salmon the pink salmon of course also known as humpbacks for the shape of the males when they're spawning the bright Silvers also called Coho salmon from a Native American language the sockeye is another Native American name also called Reds for their brilliant color on the outside and the inside and of course then the Chinooks or the king salmon I suppose they get the name King Salmon because of their exalted status as the biggest in the richest of these fish of course I need to mention there are many names for salmon and Alaskan native languages in fact even the scientific names for salmon the specific names come mostly from indigenous languages given to them by the naturalist George steller when he was going through Russia back in the 17th hundreds the pink salmon. From the Russian the chum salmon uncle rankest Kita from then on I indigenous language and then the Silver Salmon uncle rank us kids Suge the sockeye salmon. And the Chinook. All of those from the Korea indigenous language over in Russia the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is compiling a catalog of the streams and rivers and lakes that are use. Anatomist fish most of those will be salmon they expect that when they finish this list it's going to total almost $45000.00 waterways used by fish from the sea just here in the state of Alaska now everybody's aware that salmon use the big river systems but of course they also spawn and Hatch and grow in the smaller tributaries even the tiny little streamlets that are narrow for us to jump across or step across this. Sprawling intricate network of waterways which are vital for Alaska's salmon runs it's like an immense circulatory system with arteries and veins and capillaries that creates this braiding of water systems all the way through the living body of the Alaskan land. Well the most famous thing about salmon is their extraordinary life history every salmon begins its life as a freshwater fish they hatch from those little pinkish orange ish Igs in the stream and lay gravel and then each species shelters and feeds and grows in a different freshwater habitat and in this way multiple species can co-exist without competing in the same river system the length of time that salmon stay in the rivers and lakes is highly variable between species and sub populations some of the fish stay in fresh water only for a few months after they had others stay as long as several years and then they migrate downstream adapt to the salt water and finally swim out into the ocean. And again salmon are highly variable their time in the ocean ranges from a few months maybe 6 months up to 6 or 7 years and different species and different populations have their own schedule. Well then comes one of the Earth's greatest animal migrations equal to the migrations of the care who have the will the beast in Africa the salmon in their millions migrating almost miraculously back to their home streams scientists believe that perhaps salmon navigate in the open ocean by sensing the Earth's magnetic field perhaps why a sensitivity to polarized light from the sun we still don't know exactly how that happens but once they're closer to their spawning grounds salmon definitely use their acute sense of smell each fish being able to identify a unique constellation of chemical cues from its birth stream How good is that sense of smell consider this some Chinook salmon spawn in the main stem of the Yukon River but others turn off into a major tributary the tenon or river by the time these fish reach the village of the Lena and interior Alaska if you know where that is they have started to sort themselves out with the Yukon River fish moving along the north side of the river the 10 and off fish favoring the south side of the river that's 200 miles below the confluence of the Yukon and the 10 and that's how sensitive their sense of smell is in the water they're homing sense of course is so acute that some salmon especially the sockeye can return from that distant place in the ocean and spawn in this same patch of gravel where they were born so imprinted are they on those chemical Q's. As salmon approach their home rivers their color magically transforms from that silver color of their life in the ocean to the brilliant red of the Soka is in the Coho is in the sure not to the oak or and I every of the pink salmon and to the greenish and purple rainbow stripes the salmon and of course they even change shape how miraculous is that that they go from those sweet Ocean torpedoes into the males with their humpbacks and their long hook jaws now some salmon spawn within just $100.00 or so yards of salt water maybe even less and others go immense distances to their spawning grounds the longest migration is Chinooks that spawn in the Yukon River headwaters in the southern Yukon territory in northern British Columbia some of those fish have swum 2300 river miles up the Yukon and into its head water tributaries it takes them about 2 months they're swimming on an average of about 35 miles per day well it's just another one of those miraculous things about salmon that they can achieve such an incredible variation of their spawning journeys and habitats. Ok migrating salmon don't feed once they're in the fresh water they live only on their stored oily fat to meet the huge metabolic demands of swimming of mating of laying and fertilizing their eggs but then think again about those Yukon River fish swimming 2000 miles and the Humvees right over here in Indian River that have only gone 50 yards or 100 yards upstream Well that doesn't happen just capriciously the body condition of our humpies down here in Indian River de Tieri or It's very quickly and we can all watch it imagine those Yukon salmon their body condition deteriorates extremely slowly and yet I saw this summer in the headwaters of the Yukon River looking exactly like the ones we see here right next to salt water so each aspect of salmon behavior and physiology is genetically programmed for one thing for the distance to their spawning grounds and also for other specific conditions in the home river This means that salmon from every run and from each tributary are genetically distinct from all the others that this amazing adaptation to a diverse array of habitats causes the spectacular genetic variability and the finely tuned adaptations of salmon to particular localised conditions just within Bristol Bay I was reading recently 9 major river systems for salmon spawning more than 1000 distinct spawning populations of sockeye salmon in Bristol Bay imagine every time we sit down to salmon at the table we are looking at a flat out miracle right in front of us so for example rivers where the bottom gravels are heavily scoured by winter rains. Apparently the salmon you know need to be stronger to dig deeper Reds deeper nests in those kind of rivers so they have to be bigger stronger fish than the ones that spawn in the more peaceful rivers where there's not so much scouring where the Reds don't have to be as deep and where the fish don't have to be as big we know other examples of differences in the size of salmon right here around city between salmon like creek and neck or bay where the fish are dramatically different in size the sockeye salmon Another remarkable thing about salmon is of course the mass synchronized death after spawning bringing those nutrients from the far reaches of the ocean to fertilize the waters where the offspring of the salmon themselves will grow. Well Ok of course salmon were almost certainly used by the 1st people who moved across the vast Bering landbridge into the new world from Asia about 12 to 15000 years ago and every year for countless millennia people have awaited the salmon and celebrated their arrival with ceremonies and feast the call Yukon Indian people in interior Alaska who I was lucky enough to live with for a couple of years have a way of looking at Salmon as spiritual beings and I think you'll find that common to Native American people all over the continent each fish has to be treated with humility and restraint and respect honoring the fact that it's a spiritual being oh you can Indian people measure the summer in the fall by the salmon runs July is called in their counter that means the king salmon month August is sunlight on know which is the Silver Salmon month and September is nothing know about the dog salmon month there are still fish camps of course along the Yukon River and the River of the fish wheels turning out in front the gill nets the grey plumes of smoke rising from the small causes the racks lined up with hanging fish the elders teaching the kids how to set the nets and the women showing how to cut the fish with their crescent shaped and Esko Yukon children roast half dried salmon over the campfire you'll sometimes hear them saying Well now I see you coming up the Yukon River and now you've turned up into the river and now there you are passing the nun and now you're passing the new light and now you're passing the mouth. River and now here you are at our camp maybe it's not so neat who so the kids can trace the migration of the salmon and learn the geography of their homeland in that way. There are very few communities in Alaska that don't depend on salmon from the nearby rivers. And lakes are the ocean even in the biggest cities like Anchorage where people are lined up fishing along the banks of ship creek and Campbell creek right among the busy neighborhoods and the traffic of Alaska's biggest city everybody everywhere in Alaska loves salmon you can eat them fresh you can small come you can cook them you can dry am or course you can sell and it's hard to imagine a kid growing up in Alaska who doesn't know about Salmon who doesn't eat salmon who hasn't fished for Salmon who hasn't helped prepare the dinner table or the smokehouse with salmon and right here and sit go Alaska where I live most of the young people I know have either worked on fishing boats or in the processors throughout Alaska in 2011 commercial salmon fisherman earned $600000000.00 from their catch the total economic value of salmon and way higher than that I haven't been able to track it down if you add in Charter and sport fishing processing shipping in the retail sales of these fish Well Ok. History gives us a profoundly important perspective on the relationships between salmon and humankind it came as a great surprise to me especially from a book that I just finished reading called King of fish the 1000 year run of salmon by David our money on the University of Washington faculty this is an extraordinary book the 1st known salmon regulation you will learn there more than a 1000 years ago and the year 1030 a.d. In Scotland by the 12th century in England there were widespread prohibitions on dams and nets blocking salmon streams Need I mention that those were widely ignored and that the runs were heavily over fish in the industrial revolution in the 17 hundreds and hundreds dams proliferated the forests were cleared the rivers were channelized the waters were polluted and overfishing increased by the 1850s Atlanta examined in Europe were badly depleted and the declines continued until very recent times and then the story gets even more incredible because exactly the same process was repeated when the Europeans colonized eastern North America dams deforestation urban and industrial pollution sedimentation from agricultural runoff and fishing as if there were no tomorrow which of course there wasn't. The clients in Atlantic salmon were seen in the eastern United States by the 17 fifty's and they continued for the next 250 years or so and today as you know the Atlantic salmon fisheries are nearly gone certainly as a commercial enterprise and then finally. Process was repeated with industrial settlement of the Pacific coast of North America different salmon species this time the pace of change much faster fishing far more intense using more sophisticated technology dams on a scale never seen before blocking fish and depleting the water in the streams the Columbia River system has 18 major dams on it today 50 dams all together that heavily impact the salmon runs there's also sweeping transformations of the land in the Pacific Northwest and the ecosystems agriculture logging Urban Development mining and other industries whole river systems radically transform simplified channelize all the complexity in the pools and the multiple channels that salmon need gradually diminishing salmon farming in hatchery is too complex a subject to go into but yet another constellation of impacts or potential impacts on salmon. Nobody intended to damage or destroy our salmon runs and we have known for decades and in some cases 1st centuries how to protect salmon . But more powerful interests have consistently prevailed over the well being of salmon the loss of salmon as you know did not happen all at once the runs have been impacted one river and one tributary at a time until one of the Earth's greatest natural phenomena and most valuable Living Resources has dwindled to a ghost 'd of its former self it's a classic case of death by a 1000 cuts salmon returns to the rivers of the Pacific Northwest if I'm reading the biologist correctly are now somewhere between 3 and 7 per cent of their historic levels but there is a brilliant exception to this litany of an remediated loss and that's right here in Alaska now things didn't look all that great in the early days by the 1940 so last because salmon were severely depleted by overfishing especially the fish traps that black hole streams could take every fish the battle against those fish traps in the large outside corporations that own them had much to do with Alaska becoming a state. And once statehood came along a new era of conservative science based management led to a dramatic increase our recovery in our salmon fisheries this shows that salmon can be highly resilient as long as we carefully manage the fisheries and above all protect the essential habitat for salmon spawning. But according to the biologists and others the same processes that have impacted salmon runs in the lower 48 states and Europe are either happening now or planned for Alaska for example hundreds of streams have been damaged by clear cut logging here in the Tongass and a native lands in Southeastern Alaska the United States Forest Service much to its credit is now working to repair and restore some of these streams ocean trawlers you've heard about I'm certain in the news catching killing and wasting many thousands of salmon every year including the depleted stocks of Yukon River. And growing interest in hydro power projects most notably the dam the headwaters of this is sit in a river near Anchorage would be the highest dam in the western hemisphere at 885 feet tall the State Energy Authority is already seeking a license for construction of this dam that has been approved by the governor of Alaska this is a major salmon spawning system for all 5 species of salmon so it's an important issue for us to be thinking about and then finally I want to mention mines flushing sediments and waste into many watersheds dozens of new mines are being prospected or developed along Alaskan rivers or in the headwaters of these rivers in north western Canada and by far the most controversial of all these mines is the Pebble Mine Project in the Bristol Bay Area it's a huge deposit of gold. Old and copper and Melissa Lim I knew I wouldn't say that and most lived in the home she also had 3 times fast this would be one of the biggest mines in the world with an enormous reservoir for waste contained by one of the earth's longest or in fact the earth largest earthen dam in an area that famous for major seismic activity it's at the head water of a river system that sustains all 5 salmon species and most importantly as you may know the biggest and most valuable sockeye salmon fishery in the world the Pebble Mine is a classic example of the conflicting interests that surround the viability of salmon populations supporters emphasize jobs and economic benefits opponents emphasize the potential damage from pollutants that an escape from this immense containment pond within the high risk quake area could pose for salmon. If we take care of the oceans where salmon grow and the rivers were salmon spawn these fish will continue bringing hundreds of millions of dollars into Alaska's economy and providing huge amounts of food for Alaskan communities literally forever long after the oil runs dry long after the natural gas is gone long after truly renewable energy becomes a reality and long after the clear cuts have regrown long after the mines have played out we can continue to have salmon. My friend Sam Skaggs who is a professional investor in Juneau says this Alaska's river systems are like a bank that pays huge dividends every year in salmon for all Alaskans this ecosystem bank was highly perfected long before humankind ever existed we cannot improve upon it in most other places the principal from this bank has been overdrawn and the bank itself has been seriously damaged so far this hasn't happened in Alaska Well we might think my friend Sam says of salmon as God's capital we can use it wisely or we can squander it if we want to protect the salmon runs we've got to do it in exactly the same way that the salmon runs have been jeopardized one river at a time one tributary at a time this requires that we make wise and careful economic and environmental choices and then we acknowledge that we can not have it all and we have to focus on the long term benefits by always putting salmon 1st. Is this idea politically viable and Alaska could it possibly not be this is one issue if there ever was anything that can bring our diverse population of Alaskans together because every single one of us can gain immeasurably by taking care of our salmon. The beauty and complexity of salmon is fire beyond anything humans have ever created they make our computers look simple and elementary. Some of this. It makes some of us look simple and elementary to. Salmon are a testament to what the natural world can perfect given millions of years to work on it by comparison we human beings modern Homo sapiens on this earth for roughly 100-002-2000 extension 00 years a split 2nd in Salmon time we human beings are beginners we are smart but we are not terribly wise we're smart enough to harness the power to snuff out in the blink of an eye what took millions of years to perfect but are we why is enough to leave that infinitely greater genius of nature intact consider that each of us who eat salmon carries inside our bodies nutrients from those fish from the fire reaches of the ocean the same as the seals and the bears the same as the Eagles in the trees so where ever we are we are like a salmon why we are salmon speaking we are the salmon's eyes looking at themselves and by protecting the miracle of salmon in their world we are protecting ourselves in the company of what might be the Earth's most miraculous creatures. Thank you. Thank you. Ecommerce that is a production of The Island Institute. And the circus sound science channel. Written a narrative by Richard Nelson developed by confetti produced by Lisa Bosch website produced by Lewis becomes an economist is funded by the North Pacific Research for the Educational Foundation of America the Johnson Family Foundation Robert Osborne and Gerald Lorraine special thanks to the Alaska sustainable salmon fund program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts the call well 1st and to John's truly least the Bush Family Herald for more information about the subjects covered by encounters at the park across the program that are on coalition or thought for and join us on Facebook. Support for Alaska Public Media comes from Great Harvest Bread Company offering Honey Bunny hot cross buns and white chocolate cherry bread for Easter another hand made bread since sandwiches for spring in the metro mall on Benson great harvest Anchorage dot com Hey I'm Richard Nelson the producer of encounters for a nature geek there's no better city than Anchorage the capital of the world and for a radio geek that's an easy one just set that dial on k s k it's the 1st thing I do whenever I come to Anchorage I'll see along the coastal trail I'll be that guy with the microphone in the bird book See ya later I'm Chelsea Eckert a long time listener and fan of Alaska public media we live in a world where change is constant in spite of this. You can always depend on Alaska Public Media for a vast variety of quality meaningful programming but remember this programming is only possible with our support to help Alaska Public Media reach their 300000 dollar goal to continue to provide thoughtful and entertaining content become a member today at Alaska public dot org Welcome to the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature. The chimps didn't acquire all the science for us but they would also come up with metaphors like Lucy watermelon she called it Candy tree reddish cry hurt food taught to always younger then Washoe and dark she was the time keeper and we of course would have a Thanksgiving meal with the chimpanzees so we had turkey in which touch you called bird meat so right after the bird meat day touch it would start asking for sweet tree it's alive it's all connected it's intelligent it's all relative we stand at the threshold of a historic opportunity in the human experiment to reimagine how to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life each other and future generations it's a revolution from the heart of nature and the human heart in this series the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature we celebrate social and scientific innovators with breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet creating a future environment of hope. And. Support for the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature's provided in part by Organic Valley family of farms funding also provided by a grant from the Park Foundation and by the generous support of listeners like you . In western civilization we as human beings have long celebrated ourselves as exceptional and uniquely intelligent the pinnacle of evolution itself but what if we are not nearly so unique as we've like to believe and just how intelligent is a species that destroys its one and only habitat. Today science is increasingly revealing that in truth we're nearly identical biologically to many other animals we share about 50 percent of our d.n.a. With Helgi for instance but most impressive are our next of kin primates with whom we share more than 98 percent of our d.n.a. . Who are more chimps than anything else yes you might say we're all chimps. That's exactly what breakthrough primatologist researchers Roger and Deborah Fouts say in this half hour we share their astonishing journey into the heart of nature and the human heart this is where all chimps are our animals persons too with Deborah and Roger Fouts co-founders of the chimpanzee and human communication Institute My name is Neil Harvey I'll be your host Welcome to the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature. Way across the yard I saw this little it looked like a little you know child in diapers then she started quite old Beetle running tortoise and it was a washout when she was running along and I figured well she spotted her father and when she hit the fence it was a low chainlink fence she jumped over the fence and into my arms. And gave me a hug and I don't think anyone needed more they'd be that. Roger Fouts had just had the job interview from hell as a Ph d. Student in psychology at the University of Nevada Reno in 1966 he needed a research assistant ship to help offset tuition costs and provide him some income for his young human family he interviewed with Dr Allan Gardiner an experimental psychologist who during the interview roundly criticized Fouts for celebrating the work of scholars whom Gardner did not respect resulting in Gardner more or less declaring unfit for the job as a consolation for having travelled so far for a failed interview Gardiner offered to introduce the crestfallen founts to his latest research project which was designed to see if chimpanzees were capable of learning language when Washoe vaulted the fence into Rogers arms she got him the job Rogers wife Debbie joined the research project and gradually they worked with 4 more chimpanzees Marja clueless tattoo and dark all of the chimps who were raised as though they were definite human children immersed in sign language other researchers had only studied their vocalisations half a world away Dr Jane Goodall was conducting parallel research at the ground a researcher that also sought to meet the animals on their own terms Roger and Debbie Faust spoke at a Bioneers conference there was a chip that gone be that up when Goodall was provisioning he see the banana so it will he lead that chips off it come back alone she would a lock the box he'd see the bananas and it go to work. And then all the chips of the hearing distance converge but the 3rd time he led them away and came back alone he actually covered as you know but it still came out you know. Through the list so well not all of them but a lot of their vocalisations are like ours with somebody steps on your toe you don't say my goodness. It hurts a great deal I better let them know by you know screaming it just comes out why focus on vocal speech when they can voluntarily move their hands so many finally decides Well let's look at gestures and what he looked at was gone the stream chimps were you know Jane studies and then he went to where and she had a study which was about 100 kilometers away and in gone mainstream when a chimp wants to be groomed by another chimp they raise one hand in Mohali they restore use to it that's what we've now discovered is you actually have gestural dialects between different communities of chimpanzees and they have gestures like what moms ready to go there's this you know climb on my back will also males will use that time to get out of here let's split project Washoe and the research projects that followed went beyond the gestures chimpanzees are already used and trying to teach them American Sign Language within 4 years Washoe developed an extensive vocabulary of about 130 signs then she learned to ask questions and to use signs in combination Be careful what you wish for when Debbie found set up a video camera and left the room to observe the chimpanzees remotely she got some feedback she wasn't quite prepared for so the chimpanzees a see the cameras being set up and then I would go back to the video room and watch what they were doing and Washoe really didn't care for this study because it meant that all over human friends had to be out of her area for 20 minutes 3 times a day and she would come up to the camera. And say she named me give a flower she would take care be dirty which is like feces the happy she would she would curse at me. Somehow she knew that I was back watching that and we'll never know the chimps didn't acquire all the science for us but they would also come up with metaphors like Lucy watermelon she called it Candy Trink radish cry her food and so in lawyer show when she was very young we were learned Arsenal I was mainly from textbooks in older teachers and so for her bit of we used white for anything that you might wipe a young chimpanzees mouth with and one day rather than saying give me a bit to start a meal she said give me and she made an outline on her chest Ok so for the next several months every time she would say give me using her sign would have saying no that's wrong that's what you've heard it till we finally convinced her that she should use this instead of and then ironically at the Berklee School for the deaf and somebody said Oh didn't you know that is the sign for a bit of. Roger's original plan as a clinical psychologist had been to work with children and now he was just not the species he envisioned. So talk to was younger than Washoe and Dar she was the time keeper and we of course would have a Thanksgiving meal with the chimpanzees so we had turkey in which touch you called bird meat so right after bird me Day touch you would start asking for sweet tree and the sweet tree came because the family in the student family would make edible ornaments you know strings of popcorn and cranberries and cereal you know all of these and so right after Thanksgiving she would start asking for time sweet treat No no no we need to wait for the sweet treat. She also was Darren I had birthdays a day apart I'm August 1st and our was August 2nd and so we always had ice cream on dars birthday because he just loved ice cream and so I would have my birthday and we would share ice cream and some treats for my birthday and we'd all signed Happy Birthday to me and then do the next day when we would come in would be like ice cream dart ice creams like. He was our time keeper more so than any of the other chimps. Together Roger and Debbie founts publish more than $100.00 articles in scientific journals and books about their work with Washoe and other chimpanzees their research radically challenge the conventional scientific paradigm which ascribed this kind of intelligence and yes humanity only to human beings it didn't go over very well we were at a conference in Mexico and we saw one of the major people in the research community who kept saying it was all imitation and we said oh we've got the videotapes of the chimpanzee saying and he does I have to go to dinner so it was easier not to see it because then you have to change everything and you know people want to believe what they believe and it's very difficult to change that mind you they say that scientific thought and so on often changes one funeral at a time some of these people they're not I would say almost ethical enough to go back and say I was wrong or their ego won't allow them to say that I made a mistake this is incorrect because there is hard data showing that a way said wasn't the case the scientific community dismissed their work as having committed the worst possible scientific sin it was not objective after all the researchers were treating the animals as persons and learning to relate to them on their own terms. The founts became pariahs they want you to leave your both your mind in your heart behind in 2 only look at it in a rational not emotional way in other words it is asking you to be something other than human because we aren't machines emotions are a part of our biology our nervous system and more gut if you will just as much as our brain is in so it once is to dissociate from being a unitary me into bifurcated this dichotomy in that's been in science for a long time it gets back to the cart cart is viewed as the father of both subjective an object of psychology he dichotomized the human into a rational mind in a machine an automaton he once said that a dog that yelps when it's kicked suffers no more than a bell that rings when it struck this object of psychology in a sort of fits into experimental psychology in science in general where they want you to be objective and so what project Washoe did we had both the objective side Ellen Gardner was very objective beaches Garder was the thought of just what you do with the Thaller g. Is you are humble enough to observe animal behavior of any sort humans were Course or animals to to observe behavior in let the organism tell you what's important to them we had one show on her terms as a chimpanzee so to just to her rather than expecting her to adjust to what we humans might want also the gardener's reason that if or she was going to learn this language if she was going to learn to talk she would have to have good friends to talk to him. So rather than treating her like a white rat in a maze they immersed her in an environment of sign language with basically a human family around her that's very different than the Cartesian of being objective only do them numbers don't get emotionally tied to them and so on I mean if you treated the child that way if you hid your emotions were kept objective imagine what that child might be like if you raise them by never showing any love never showing any warmth basically treating them like a machine it would be a terrible terrible thing to do in fact I bet you you could probably get arrested for child abuse Roger and Deborah found that Washo was anything but a machine in fact she was the archetypal caring mother figure she doted on Lewis and pretty much watched out for everyone including the falsehoods human son Josh her own baby had died and she passionately adopted Lucas his mother had rejected him she had molds in her head from implantation research and so he was 10 months old he came home to our show on Josh's 12th birthday and you took lose out to wash and before you handed him to her you said I have a baby and she got up Baby Hope she was just who she was so excited and then I walked in at Lula's and she saw him and arousal just went down and she set down in the signed very calmly baby it was a baby but it wasn't her baby. One experience that Roger had with Washoe showed him the chimpanzees could also be altruistic. It contradicted the Cartesian view especially the commonly held tenet of scientific rationalism that living things are primarily Gene machines unconsciously calculating their selfish actions based on whether it improves the likelihood of surviving and passing on their genes when we 1st moved to Oklahoma and she was about 6 or so he put her on an island it was a moated Island artificial moat maybe 8 feet deep and because chimps don't swim they don't have the buoyancy that we do so they put a electric fence and went all the way around the island well this chimp could just arrive years brand new in the people there put him on the island and of course he was terrified of the champs they didn't know him and he panicked and he jumped over the fence and into the moat and he went down and he started to come up again in him went down in Washoe jumped over the fence and there was maybe 6 inches and she landed on that and she reached out and grabbed the base of one of the poles holding the electric wires and she got into the water and reached into the water and pulled this chimp out that she did not know they said she was brand new so she really literally saved his life and risked her own because she did not like water she wasn't one to even really want to wade much at all but I mean just see that risking her life to save somebody a stranger if you will is remarkable but I think that speaks to her she always cared about looking out for for people in trouble. When we return more with Roger and Debbie Fouts on how the scientific paradigm is changing today and why they are modern day abolitionists this is where all chimps are our animals persons to I'm Neil Harvey you're listening to the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature. You have. A house. Was. A home. To explore all available via nears radio shows video programming and to hear more from Roger and Deborah felts please visit Bioneers dot au argy for Roger and Deborah felts their family extended to the chimpanzees they worked with they were persons to them in this era of rising animal rights consciousness and viral media it's easy to forget that until very recently and in many places still chimps have been routinely treated in ways that can best be described as abuse and even torture imagine how the felts felt when adopting a chimp whose mother still had bolts in her head from medical experiments and no longer knew how to be a mom or having the owners of the facility in Oklahoma in which the chimps previously lived force all the chimps to wear chains around their necks and to live in 5 by 5 cages that were 7 feet high or glue a cap to a baboons head to allow a machine to spin at high speed and stop suddenly to simulate a car accident. And when the institution owns the chimps there's nothing to stop them after all this is the legacy of Rene Descartes and the Enlightenment thinking that birthed our current scientific paradigm from this perspective animals are just machines without feelings creativity or certainly consciousness after losing a federal grant in 1900 that supported the welfare of the chimps Roger and Debbie Phelps felt compelled to choose jobs at smaller universities without ph d. Programs in order to preserve their autonomy and the safety of the chimps they founded a nonprofit friends of Washoe to help assure their wellbeing when the founts retired in 2009 they partnered with Dr Marilee Jones fold and her fine a foundation in Canada a sanctuary to care for several of the remaining chimps when Washoe passed away it was really really terrible both of us have lost our parents and so you know we knew what grief was but I think everyone in the family was terribly. Heartbroken when Washoe passed away we were with Washoe and we knew the end was near and so really lived about 30 miles away and we had called her and we were holding Washoe in our laps and were merely got there and she held her then Washoe let go and see and she passed so it really created he did she lifted her head into it I mean we hear about humans that wait until people are there to see them onto the other side and truly that's that is how Washoe I detect the other chimps to after she died for about a week they were very very very sad very somber and poor Lula's I mean you know she was more than his mother she whispers everything so they are aware of grief in the Thai force Bush observed something about while chimpanzees he was following a troop and he heard this leopard and screaming and so on and when he got there there was a I think a teenager that had been killed by the leopard and the alpha male set by the body and the adults of that group of chimpanzees came by and would touch and so on and move off and he kept all the young ones to 2 and 3 year olds except for one he let one young chip in it was the little brother of the juvenile that had been killed but they spent the day with the body basically having a week I mean this what we would call it. In the early ninety's the founders created the chimpanzee and human communication Institute at Central Washington University a sanctuary dedicated to the protection of chimpanzees and to better educating students and the public they were active in a successful campaign that urged the u.s. Fish and Wildlife Services to extend the endangered species designation to all chimpanzees not only wild ones this contributed to the National Institutes of Health a landmark decision in 2015 to stop using chimpanzees in biomedical research where researchers often abused the animals performed experiments without anesthesia and infected them with deadly viruses the founts advocate the end to all animal testing they want all captivity of animals who grew up living freely in the wild to be abolished. I am an abolitionist I understand that for our human consumption people do feel that cows and pigs and chickens should I guess they have to live in captivity I just don't think any animals that are free living lions tigers any of the zoo animals they shouldn't be in captivity I don't think we should keep breeding them in captivity because that's the big things is right now well they're not in the wild anymore so we're really going to need to breed more so breeding them into prison to me just seems to fit doesn't seem we should protect their habitat where they are the money should go exact to the habitat right as far as domestic animals will eat meat don't we were vegetarian for years and then I think you sort of come to the root realization that it's all part of the Dow in we're going to feed on life but Nyman Nyman farms the pigs get to be pigs and they have one bad day in most of us won't we all will have one bad day but. So. Do you see him saying it half reforming is an abomination if you're going to take their life to survive then you should have respect it should be a sacred if it rather than this apparent abuse of them so whether it's in cages or and we are complete abolitionists chimpanzees belong we've said in print that we would never ever do a project like this they can't go home again those chimps that have been home reared in this country it sounds romantic but with Lucy a chimp that we worked with in Oklahoma it was not a happy ending it would be like me taking a 12 year old human child and dropping out of the outback of Australia and saying these are your roots just give me your earphones and you're here i Phone. It does survive and that's what they did to Lucy Lucy used to have more Chaney's with the temporal and so I mean she was she was human eyes basically it to our culture then to put her back in Africa was I think was a big mistake individuals like this what we did is give them the best life we could and still are supporting them we should have a reverence for the very thing that keeps us alive you know whether it's a plant or an animal they are all beings there are Gannett beings that we should appreciate the sacrifice that we're forcing on them quite literally for us. Here is how Roger Fouts summed it all up in his book next of kin. Washoe the chimpanzee and friend for over 30 years has taught me that we are both part of the natural world we share with all our fellow animals she has taught me that personhood is something we share and that personhood goes beyond species classifications she has taught me that human arrogance is very lethal to our fellow beings on this planet especially when it is combined with human ignorance she has taught me that the most profound scientific discoveries are often based on the most humble approach. She has taught me that compassion is one of our dearest traits and that we should value would have been of all others including intelligence. She helped me to realize that if we humans do not embrace and respect our fellow species on this planet then we stand a good chance of destroying the whole thing. After all people are animals and animals seem to be people too. You can see and hear more from Deborah and Roger Fouts and explore more Bioneers radio programs podcasts and videos online at Bioneers dot argy for information on attending the National Bioneers conference and Bioneers events in your area please visit Bioneers dot o.-r. G. Or call 1877 by any or. The by in years revolution from the heart of nature is a production of Bioneers and collective Heritage Institute executive producer Kenny OS a bill written by Kenny OS about senior producer in station relations Stephanie Welch host and consulting producer Neil Harvey program engineer Emily Harris production assistants Tina Rubio and Melanie Choi interview recording engineer Emily Harris our theme music is co-written by the Baka forest people of Cameroon and back of beyond from the album east to west all royalties from pocket compositions and performances go to the pocket fours people through the charity global music exchange find out more at global music Exchange dot au argy additional music was made available by Sounds True at Sounds True dot com for more music information please visit pioneers dot au argy the opinions expressed in the Bioneers revolution from the heart of nature are those of the presenters and are not necessarily those of Bioneers and collective Heritage Institute the underwriters for this radio station. My name is Neil Harvey thank you for listening and I invite you to join the pioneers in inspiring a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life each other and future generations. This is program number 0116 this program was made possible in part by organic bellies pasture raised organic dairy products bringing the good from our family farmers to your table at organic deli Doug.
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