The press release accompanying the video notes that Koko received an initial "script" to work with. However, the release also claims that Koko was "briefed" on climate change with an issue of National Geographic, that she was "very interested" in the subject matter and that she was "allowed to improvise" for the purposes of the video. The release says that "Koko was clear about the main message" and refers to her as the "voice of Nature." Additionally, NOE's YouTube page includes a note from the Gorilla Foundation describing the footage as "Koko reacting after she has been informed about what is at stake at COP21."
College of William and Mary professor Barbara King, a biological anthropologist who has studied monkeys and apes for years, believes that Koko certainly has the ability to understand and express isolated signs and strings of gestures. But "there's a big leap between her basic linguistic skills" and the ability to grasp complicated ecological ideas, King said, and there's just no evidence that Koko can do the latter.
"There's nothing in the published literature that would support the claim that Koko could understand these concepts," King said.
Frans de Waal, director of Emory University's Living Links primate research center, suggested that the conservation video hurts the credibility of those who study animal intelligence.
"Koko's human-coached message goes well beyond anything that a gorilla understands or cares about, such as human global impact," de Waal told HuffPost. He added that "stunts" like this one "have given the ape-language field a bad name, whereas there is so much more to discover if we just study what cognitively advanced animals can do of their own accord."
