Another celebration on the 4th of July! Koko turned 36 !

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I am a member of the Gorilla Foundation, and have just received photo's of Koko and her 36th birthday blowing out candles on her birthday cake! I am not asking for you guys to join or to make a donation but just to go and have a look at this fantastic site. There are a lot of interesting information on the endangered Gorilla's especially those in Rwanda. Koko is a very special gorilla. Koko loves kittens and she still grieves for her first kitten, All Ball. Her best friend now is a cat called Smoky. Here is the link to see Koko sign, take her daily notes and playing with her cat and other animals, even a bird! http://www.koko.org/friends/research.koko.html "Koko is a 35 year-old lowland gorilla who learned to speak American Sign Language when she was just a baby. Her teacher, Dr. Penny Patterson, began working with Koko as a Ph.D. project at Stanford, thinking it would only be a 4-year study. Thirty-some years later, Penny and Koko continue to work together at the Gorilla Foundation in one of the longest interspecies communication studies ever conducted, the only one with gorillas. Koko now has a vocabulary of over 1000 signs, and understands even more spoken English. Koko has become famous not only for her language capabilities, but also her heart-warming relationship with kittens (captured in the book Koko's Kitten). As Penny says, "she's just as much a person as we are." Koko Signs "Love" Koko's greatest desire is to have a baby. She has indicated that she will teach her children sign language, which will engender the next generation of interspecies communication. Koko has become the ambassador for her critically endangered species. People need to care about a species to save it, and Koko makes people care! The pending completion of the new Maui Ape Preserve by the Gorilla Foundation, and the expansion of our Africa Projects, will help assure the future for Koko, ape language studies, free-living gorillas and other great ape species."