Baby Raised With Chimp In Bizarre Experiment That Ended In Tragedy

The two formed a close bond, but the experiment had heartbreaking consequences.

In the 1930s, a bizarre experiment saw a 10-month-old human baby raised alongside a chimpanzee, an experiment that would end in tragedy.

Animal psychologists Winthrop Niles Kellogg and his wife, Luella, decided to raise their son, Donald, alongside a chimp named Gua.

At the time, Gua was just seven and a half months old when she joined the family.

The experiment, which many now describe as deeply unsettling, involved treating the two as siblings.

They wore baby clothes, sat in high chairs for meals, and even received kisses goodnight as if they were brother and sister.

Gua and Donald were raised as siblingsYouTube/AV Geeks

Winthrop reflected on the purpose of the study in his book, The Ape and the Child, writing: “What would be the nature of the resulting individual who had matured… without clothing, without human language and without association with others of its kind?”

For nine months, the Kelloggs conducted rigorous daily tests on both Donald and Gua, reportedly for hours each day.

Some of the tests were intense, including one where the pair were spun around in chairs until they began to cry.

In Adult Health and Early Life Adversity: Behind the Curtains of Maternal Care Research, Theodore Dumas explores the reasoning behind the study, writing: “The basic question was, is a chimp a chimp because it has chimp genes or because it is raised by other chimpanzees?”

“Thus, if baby Gua grew up to be very chimp-like in a human household, then genes win. However, if baby Gua grew up to be more human than chimp, then environment wins. As such, Gua was treated like Donald’s sister and underwent the same bathing, dressing, and feeding processes.”

The study was initially planned to last five years. However, the Kelloggs ultimately ended it early after noticing troubling changes in Donald’s behavior. He began grunting when asking for food, wrestling with Gua, and even displaying aggressive tendencies such as biting.

The experiment was cancelled after nine monthsYouTube/AV Geeks

Another theory suggests that the parents feared Gua’s growing strength could eventually pose a danger to Donald.

Unfortunately, both Donald and Gua met tragic ends.

Once the experiment was abandoned, Gua was taken away from the home where she had been raised as part of the family.

She was placed in a cage, a stark contrast to the affection she had previously known.

Gua sadly died at the age of threeYouTube/AV Geeks

Dumas noted the emotional toll of this separation, stating: “This was the second time she was stripped from her ‘mother/caregiver’ and she went from a warm affectionate family life to a relatively barren cage with other strange and not so well-behaved chimps,”

He went on to explain: “She died less than a year later, circa her third birthday, of a broken heart (the official cause of death was determined to be pneumonia).”

Meanwhile, Donald’s life also took a devastating turn. In 1973, at the age of 43, he tragically died by suicide—just one year after his parents passed away.