Grade ⅞’s in Wingham have been studying chimps. If you look at our previous posts, we have a few posts about Animal Cruelty, and a book called Half Brother. This book was about a teenage boy, Ben, who got a chimp named Zan for a project on communication. This book took place in 70’s. He goes through struggles with Zan, but Ben soon realizes Zan is a brother to him. After reading this book, we watched a documentary, Project Nim. I have had many mixed emotions with this movie. I have had really happy emotions at times, but there are some scenes that make me want to cry.
As a class who has been thinking, talking, and studying chimps, we were asked to come up with similarities and differences between Half Brother and Project Nim. Thinking of this during the movie, I came up with a lot of ideas that relate.
The similar scenes from Project Nim and Half Brother was at the very beginning when they both showed scenes either in our mind or on a screen, of Zan or Nim’s mother being shot with a tranquilizer gun to take the baby. This scene also disturbed me more than anything. Another similarity is how these chimps were taught sign language. Both of these chimps were used in the exact same project, to teach the chimps to communicate with humans with American Sign Language. As similar as Zan and Nim are, there definitely are times where that is not a good thing. As a sign they are beginning to grow, both of the chimps become very dangerous at the end of the book or documentary. Zan bit lots of people, and he also ruined the Tomlin’s household. Nim killed a poodle by hitting it off of the wall, and he almost killed one of his owners by dragging her across the floor.
As many similarities are there are, there are also many differences. In Half Brother, Zan was not very fond of Richard (the father of the story), but Nim absolutely hated Wer, the father in Project Nim. He hated Wer so much, Nim did all he could to separate Wer from his wife whom Nim liked very much. As in Half Brother, the main character, Ben Tomlin, did not want to keep Zan one bit, at the start. But at the end of the book, they felt like they were brothers. This is very different from Project Nim because the main characters loved Nim with all of their heart, and even though they had to, they didn’t want to say goodbye to him. At the first sanctuary Nim was sent to in Oklahoma, the chimps would help the main director with the dirty work, such as washing out the cages with a hose (they definitely turned that into a lot of fun!), and dusting and scrubbing floors, etc. Zan did exactly the opposite of these chimps. He was the mess-maker.
A movie like this was bound to have a lot of sad parts, but I was not ready for the disturbing scenes that were showed. Like I said before, the most disturbing part was taking Nim away from his mother. The sounds of the hoots the mother was making, the way she was stroking her baby’s hair, because she knew what was going to happen, made everything so much worse. I thought American Sign Language is a great idea, until I figured out what they had to do to make it happen and be successful.. I was also very disturbed by the scenes of the sanctuaries Nim was put into. The sanctuary in Oklahoma looked like a torture chamber, or a prison cell. Cages, among cages, among cages were everywhere! Hooting chimpanzees and chimpanzees with tortured expressions, locked up in cages. . . it’s pure Animal Cruelty.
There was also some very happy and delightful scenes. Watching Nim jump, play, laugh, and tickle with his owners and students made Nim very happy, making me very happy, as well. It was said that when Nim was taken from his mother, he was unhappy but he didn’t try to get back to her. He was very happy with Stephanie and her kids. The happiest scene in the documentary for me, was Nim in Black Beauty Ranch after Chris Burn took over. Before he had the ranch, Nim was the only chimp in his cage, and he was not allowed any visitors. After it got handed over, Nim had a cage with plenty of chimp friends and lots of toys, and laughs to be with. Nim was happy. So was I.
As much as you may want to keep a cute, and cuddly looking chimp as a house pet, you have no more than 5 years before the chimps become much bigger, and much stronger. When a chimp gets to full growth, they have the strength of five full grown men.
As much as I am happy Nim lived in a healthy environment at the end, nothing can change the fact that what happened to Nim and his mother was wrong. Animal Cruelty is nothing to smile or laugh about. It is a reason to fight against those who wish to break the law, and do what they were told not to do.
Help the chimps that live in unsafe and insecure environments and let them live their life where they belong.
Put yourself in Nim’s mother’s shoes. If what you knew was going to happen to your baby, since it’s already happened 6 times, what would you do to try to keep your baby safe, and to keep it in your arms?
