Dear Friend,

We all know that Koko is extraordinary. After all, it's not every day you meet a gorilla who can speak in American Sign Language. But she isn't unique — she's just had a unique life, surrounded by loving teachers!

You see, all gorillas, not just Koko, have the natural capability to do what Koko does -- communicate with humans via a gestural language, and understand spoken words.

Gorillas are born with the natural ability to use gestures to communicate -- they have been observed using up to 100 natural gestures with each other. Koko knows over 1,000 words in sign language; Michael knew over 500 words, and Ndume exhibits dozens of meaningful gestures.

We are embarking on a new initiative to foster this language capacity in other gorillas living in zoos and sanctuaries, by developing educational tools to train caregivers.

Your gift today of $25 or more today will help the Gorilla Foundation accelerate this vital effort to transmit Koko’s legacy to all gorillas!

This initiative will result in the development of educational tools — in particular a video-based Koko App, with Koko demonstrating the signs, and Penny and staff demonstrating how to teach great apes— to help other institutions give their great apes a vocabulary of care signs that enables gorillas to better express their needs and wants, to caregivers and visitors.

Ultimately, we believe that interspecies communication is how we can save gorillas in the wild from imminent extinction, and make the lives of those gorillas in zoos and sanctuaries more enriching, for both them and us.

With your generous gift today, you will be joining us in creating these tools, and transmitting Koko’s legacy to all gorillas!

It’s time for gorillas in zoos and sanctuaries across the world to benefit from the fact that “they are all Kokos.” Thank you for helping us apply our work with Koko to benefit hundreds of gorillas in captivity, thousands of gorillas in Africa, and millions of humans who care about them worldwide!

With sincere gratitude for your vital support!

Sincerely,

Penny Patterson, Ph.D. President and Director of Research	Koko Designated "Voice of Nature"