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["Don Albertson" <dalbertson AT houston.rr.com>]

From News of the Weird... 
 

    

  
  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Koko, California's famous
"talking" gorilla, is breaking into song.

The 31-year-old lowland gorilla, who is said to have
mastered some 1,000 terms in American sign language, has
"written" lyrics for a new album which should be available by
the end of the week, her keepers said on Tuesday.
"The songs show a real depth of emotion. She's a complex
person, just like we are," said Jennifer Patterson, a
spokeswoman for the California-based Gorilla Foundation near
San Francisco that has been Koko's home for some three decades.
The album, entitled "Fine Animal Gorilla" after Koko's term
for herself, runs the gamut of musical styles from low
intensity rap and reggae to lullabies.

While Koko herself does not sing on the album -- that is
left to human vocalists -- she did sign off on the song lyrics
and delivery.

"We pretty much run all our lyrics by Koko," album producer
Skip Haynes told KCBS radio. "Now, she's getting to the point
where she actually listens to different mixes and tells us what
mix she likes."

Patterson said the CD would be available through the
foundation's Web site (http://www.koko.org), and was expected
to cost about $14.

Koko is one of several gorillas which reputedly learned the
basics of American Sign Language, and has frequently been
pressed into service as an ambassador for her species. Lowland
gorillas like Koko are threatened by logging and poaching in
their native habitats in central Africa, while their cousins,
the mountain gorillas, now number fewer than 500 in the wild.