Most people have heard of Binta Jua, the eight-year-old gorilla who rescued a three-year-old boy after he fell into the gorilla enclosure. She not only treated him with great gentleness, she carefully carried him over and put him down near the entrance gate where the zoo attendants could reach him and bring him to the medical attention he needed. This was a remarkable story that most people saw as a fascinating demonstration of a "brute animal" showing "human-like" compassion.

A curious aspect of this event is the common explanation that Binta, abandoned by her mother, was raised by humans and thus was imprinted by humans. This seems intended as an explanation of why Binta cared for the human child at all. I wonder why an explanation is necessary. Gorillas have maternal instincts, and Binta, I seem to recall, is pregnant. Perhaps she just wanted to help. I do not understand why a prior relationship with humans was necessary.

That such imprinting may not be a prerequisite is suggested by another well documented case from the Red Sea, where dolphins protected a wounded and bleeding swimmer from a shark attack. The dolphins were entirely wild. It, too, was an instance of "brute animals" acting as humans sometimes do.

Let us disregard the fact that too many humans fail to show any such "human-like" feelings when confronted with the needs of people they do not personally know - and sometimes those they do know. Let us ignore the arrogance of classifying all other species as "brute animals."