The Gorillas Speak Out

She’s an unlikely video star, a 23-year-old primate with an 800-word vocabulary who weighs 280 pounds and eats more than 30 pounds of fruits and vegetables a day. Yet Koko, a lowlands Gorilla known throughout the world for her unusual ability to communicate with humans by sign language, recently made her first TV commercial. It’s a public service announcement (PSA) aimed at raising funds for the Gorilla Foundation, a nonprofit research organization that currently cares for Koko and two other gorillas in Woodside, California.