Animals and Humans

Reading the article "A Change of Heart about Animals" was very interesting to me. I found it interesting that a 300-pound gorilla was taught sign language, and honestly, that's pretty impressive. What I don't understand is why? Why does a 300-pound gorilla need to know sign language? Is it because it's cool to look at? Is it because people wanted to test the animal on it's learning ability? Who really knows? A gorilla needs to be in the wild roaming free, not in a session learning a new language. That is my opinion on that matter. Another topic in the article I found interesting was the research with the two birds. I was interested about how the female bird, Betty, was able to use her beak to wedge a wire through a crack and bend it with her beak to make a hook, grabbing a piece of food from the tube 9 out of 10 times. One questioned raised up in my head: How did she think to do that? And that is probably what the researchers were studying. I have no problem with animals having researched done on them, but there should be some type of limit to the research. What makes sense to test the animal on, and what doesn't. The article also started, " It's commonly believed that other animals have no sense of their mortality and are unable to comprehend the concept of their own death. " Sometimes I believe that researchers know this and they take advantage of it. Sometimes the animals are treated in such a cruel way when they are being used for research and it shouldn't be like that. If an animal is going to be used for the project, they should be treated in a where it doesn't seem like a cruel and unusual punishment. Like I said before, I don't mind animals being used for research, but  do believe there should be a limit.