Should an animal raised as a human be treated like an animal?

If you're reading this you must be wondering what on Earth I'm talking about. Watch the video below and you'll see what I mean.

In my opinion, this is the most confusing form of mental torture a person can inflict on an animal. Taken out of the habitat of his biological parents at birth, Nim would have had no concept of chimp life or culture before he was brutally forced back into association with his own kind. But were they really

his own kind?

Picture this: You are the adopted child of an Australian family and yet your biological parents are Japanese. You learn to communicate through sign language with those around you and can associate with the other children in your Australian family, forming a strong familial bond with them despite your visual differences. Then suddenly, you are pulled away from all that you know and forced back to your country of origin where no one understands you, and you understand no one.

How would this experience make you feel? Alienated, alone, confused and betrayed?

I imagine that going through this would be unbelievably emotionally and mentally scarring, even for us intellectually higher beings who have proven time and again that our bodies and minds can overcome incredible amounts of trauma. But how could a young chimp overcome this?

Chimps are one of man's closest ancestral relatives. Their brains and bodies have the capacity to one day be on an equal level to that of present day Homosapiens. It is popular theory that the nature of man is made up of (and is ever changing because of) culture, technologies and their influence. This man made world was all that Nim knew before the lead scientist decided to abort "Project Nim." What evidence is there to say that the nature of chimps is not comprised in exactly the same manner as that of man? How can we expect Nim to instantly discover his true chimp nature when placed among them again after having no recollection of his biological family or seeing another chimp? It is practically the complete reversal of the story of Tarzan, only with the addition of brutal animal testing utilizing hundreds of syringes and triggering the onset of Hepatitis. I really do question where the humanity in that lies. An extreme superiority complex in the value of ourselves over any other living being is clearly visible here. Animal testing is already protested by many, but this use of Nim, referred to as "the Chimp who would be human" is to me just as unethical as the use of humans for testing if not more so. At least a human could have a say.

Nim died 20 years earlier than the life expectancy of a Chimp in the wild. His life was cut significantly short by the utter lack of humanity displayed by the scientists who were responsible for his well-being. Scientists continue to exploit animals in such a way even now. Today, man looks back at the past and realises how many cruel and unforgiveable things they have done in the past. I can only hope that in the future we can look back on the numerous acts of animal cruelty we have inflicted and acknowledge these mistakes in the same way.

Posted in: experiment nim ape human treatment