A Movie – Project Nim 7/25/11

July 25, 2011

I did not know about this project at all. Nim is giving us many important questions in human’s life. Nim was a chimpanzee who was separated from his mom when he was 2 weeks old for human’s egoistic experiment. He made human friends in his way to grow as a part of human’s life, he lived with a family with children, then moved into the mansion which was a part of Colombia University’s experimental group. He was taught to act like human and learned sign languages to communicate with human. He has gave a big impact on many humans who took care of him. Once he was grown to be a young chimpanzee, he had to move into the chimpanzee institute (his original place) where many of chimpanzees were kept in cages. He was too big to be a part of their experiment. He started to hurt people without any intention. He is a strong animal himself. It was very hard on him to live in caged space after he was spoiled like a human kid. But there were several animal care takers who became good friends of him. Then he had to move again when this institute got into money trouble, this time he was sent to the lab to be a part of medical experiment. He was caged in a small space. But an animal sanctuary in Texas stepped in and helped him. Now he is in Texas, but alone. He got a new big cage without any companion. Chimpanzee is a social animal. Animal care taker from Oklahoma requested to visit, but rejected. Finally the owner of this animal sanctuary was changed and the situation got better. Nim got some companions and this animal care taker could visit, and visited for many times and played with him. He lived 5 more years and died when he was 23 years old. It is amazing to see Nim’s forgiveness after experincing through human’s ugly nature. It is a great documentary film.