Loulis

Loulis (born May 10, 1978) is a chimpanzee who learned to communicate using signs adapted from American Sign Language.

Loulis was named for two caregivers (Louise and Lisa) at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was born. After ten months at Yerkes, Loulis was taken from his biological mother (who remained at Yerkes) and transferred to Oklahoma by Roger Fouts. Fouts had been working with Washoe, the first chimpanzee used in sign language experiments, and wanted to see what would happen if Washoe had an infant. Specifically, Fouts wanted to know if she would teach her offspring signs, so he gave infant Loulis to Washoe. In 1980, Roger and Deborah Fouts moved to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington with several other chimpanzees involved in the language experiments. By 1993, the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) was built for the chimpanzees to reside in. In 2013, Loulis was moved from the CHCI to the chimpanzee sanctuary of the Fauna Foundation in Canada.