Nick Pyenson

You know, we've got the pant hoot where they display and then they make, everybody knows the pant hoot, you know, and then it builds up to a big scream.

I'm not going to do it because that gets very loud.

We always joke when we're caregivers that when we talk to people, we talk chimp first half the time.

Like we greet small babies, we're holding out our hands and just like, we've got to get out more.

We've got to get with people more.

That day I realized everything's not cool and everything is not good and something needed to be done and I was determined to do something about it.

There's been so many examples of how the animal research basis has just transformed lives.

I'm not saying that that gives us the right to do the research, but I'm just saying that that research, with as few animals as possible, has been transformative on the way medical science has progressed.

I heard about the chimps in 1974.

This young man, who was a graduate student in my zoology lab, walked in and he started talking about, there's these chimps in Oklahoma that are using American Sign Language to talk.

And I'm like, no way.

And so I was intrigued.

And he brought out a chimpanzee named Allie and a female named Vanessa.

They came over to me and hugged.

And as we're hugging, it was like a flash in my head.

I don't want to be an orthopedic surgeon anymore.

I want to do whatever this is.

These are my people.

And I didn't even, I'd never even heard the word primatology.

And I knew I wanted to be whatever that was.