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year before, she had graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in psychology.
She had come to the University of Oklahoma to help with the signlanguage studies, and to work with
primates.
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8) By the time Lucy was eleven, the Temerlins had decided that they could not keep either chimp much
longer. However, although the Temerlins felt that they could no longer keep Lucy, neither could they
consign her to a life in a zoo or a lab. Through a visiting primatologist the Temerlins heard of rehabilita-
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tion work being done in Senegal and The Gambia by Stella Brewer, the daughter of Eddie Brewer, a white
ex-colonial who is the director of wildlife in The Gambia. The Brewers had been trying with uncertain
results to re-introduce captive chimps to the wild. Stella Brewer was at first unreceptive to the
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idea of taking Lucy on. At eleven and a half, Lucy was full grown, and Stella had no prior experience with
her that might have given her dominance over Lucy. Moreover, Lucy had no memories of the wild which
might be tapped during rehabilitation. The idea of rehabilitation was not universally applauded in the
100United States. A number of scientists thought that to expose a sheltered chimp like Lucy to the hazards of
the wild was ill advised and perhaps cruel. Nevertheless, the Temerlins felt that even if the attempt failed,
Lucy would have had the chance both to be free and to live life as a chimp, a possibility that would forever
be out of reach should she be sent to a lab or a zoo.
105 9) Stella Brewer finally agreed to accept Lucy after Carter offered to stay on to ease the transition to life
in Africa. The Temerlins, Carter, Lucy, and Marianne left for Africa in September of 1977.
10) Although Janis Carter originally became involved with chimps through Roger Fouts's sign-language
110 work, her present attitude toward signing is shaped by what she sees as her major chore, which is to break
Lucy's ties to humans and reinforce her chimp-ness.
11) For the first year and a half in Africa, Carter, Lucy, and Marianne lived at the Abuko Reserve, just
115 outside Banjul. Almost from the time of their arrival it was clear that Lucy and Marianne were never going
to be integrated into Stella Brewer's chimp group in Senegal. Lucy was visibly out of sorts, and this, in
120 combination with a lack of provision for Lucy's future, caused Carter to decide to stay on. At first Carter
brought the wilds to Lucy, rather than Lucy to the wilds. The situation was not a happy one: Lucy spent her
first eighteen months in Africa in a cage. «Basically, Lucy just hung on at Abuko,» Carter told me. «The
125 changes really happened for her once she moved to Baboon Island.» Marianne, who was less cosmopolitan
than Lucy, adapted more readily to the natural environment.
12) Lucy spent her time in a cage because everybody knew that if she got out of the cage, no one could
130 get her back into it. Although she could be intimidated by other chimps, she could not be intimidated by
human beings. Once a man threatened her with a rake and Lucy simply took the rake and broke it. No one
other than Carter could venture inside the cage to clean it, so when Carter was away Lucy would live in
135 absolute squalor. Carter recalled that Lucy was a pretty pathetic sight back then. She got painfully thin and
lost most other hair.
13) Lucy came to the island in May, 1979, and it was a year before she really started interacting with
other chimps. One casualty of this traumatic period was Lucy's functional use of sign language. Carter
140 realized that using sign language with Lucy set up a special bond between them that excluded the other
chimps. Carter has said, «I don't see that using sign language has anything to do with being a wild chimp.
The sign language was just too strong a tie. It meant that I was special over the others, and that Lucy
145 thought that we were a team. I'm not going to be with Lucy forever, and I wanted to know that she was
prepared for the day when I was gone.»
14) Carter reported that Lucy still regularly uses more than twenty signs when she is around Carter. But
Lucy must marvel that sign language, which everybody made such a fuss about when she was young, only
rarely produces any response in Carter.
150 15) Lucy retains other legacies of her former life. Although she eats leaves and fruits as the other chimps
do, she stead fastly refuses to hunt for arboreal ants or weaver ants. Nor does she trust herself to nests
155 built in the leafy parts of branches. Lucy prefers to settle herself in the crook of a sturdy branch, close to
the trunk of the tree.
16) Carter and Eddie Brewer, the director of wildlife, have had an uneasy relationship over the
years.They appear to have fundamentally different ideas about what type of program might best serve the
160 needs of the chimpanzees. Brewer does not worry about a future in which the chimps are partially
dependent upon food drops. Carter, though, is perhaps unrealistic in her determination that her chimps
should have a truly wild life. In this disagreement it is Brewer who has the power to enforce his ideas.
165 17) For one thing, Brewer keeps adding other formerly captive chimps to the western end of the