Disclaimer: over the past 7-8 years my wife and I have fostered and adopted out about 25-30 rescue cats, and have even taken in about 7 ourselves. So maybe my opinion on this in a BIT tainted . . .
I’m sure many of you have heard by now that Koko the Sign Language Gorilla left this Vale of Tears recently at 46. Part of her legacy was her friendship with kittens, which on the surface, seems sweet. And, to an extent, it probably is.
The more I dig down, I do have a few questions and concerns, and NONE of this it to blame the now demised ape:
—If I have this straight, her first “adopted” kitten was Small Ball----who apparently was hit by a car, devastating Kiko. Why would a zoo/animal shelter allow a cat to run free as an outdoor cat???:mad::mad::mad:
—The claims Kiko “adopted” Small Ball and other kittens: the videos I saw showed that all visits were carefully supervised, and in one, when the kittens rode her back as she was walking into her shelter, Kiko’s minders quickly grabbed the kitten as it was in danger of getting knocked off her back from the top of a tunnel she was crawling through.
—This was less of an adoption than a carefully supervised interaction between two species. As gentle as Kiko may have been with the kittens, surely she with the strength of 8 Olympic power lifters could not be trusted to comfort, let alone with limited intelligence, care for, these delicate felines without accidentally injuring one of them.
I get it: Kiko played nice with kittens under human supervision . … could we knock it off with the “adopted” crapola? Kittens are VERY delicate creatures, with a higher than many expect heartbreaking mortality rate. They are NOT playthings, gifts, or toys. I get the researchers were trying to prove how “human” gorillas are. And I don’t have a problem with that.
But please, stop equating an animal using a smaller furry creature as a plaything to making the time, financial investment and emotional investment into welcoming a new cat into your home for the next 10-20 years. The ape didn’t “adopt” the kitten, at best she put up with it, under human supervision.
Adoption is truly a Lifetime commitment.