Quite suddenly, Kanzi (1980-2025) passed away on March 18^th at the Ape Initiative Lab in Des Moines, IA. We view this as an irreparable loss for science and for humanity. In acquiring at an early age an astounding level of comprehension of spoken English as well as a very high command of arbitrary signs (called lexigrams) through which he could communicate with humans, bonobo Kanzi led the way in the redefinition of the human mind, the role of culture, the function of a symbolic environment. Kanzi learned to make stone tools and fire, he understood narratives and movies, he could produce art and make jokes. He was the object of several documentary movies and of hundreds of publications. For more than a decade now, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, the experimental psychologist and primatologist who raised Kanzi and presented his achievements to the scientific community and the larger public as early as the 1990s, was unduly prevented from getting access to him and the rest of the group. Bonobo Hope International (BHI), legally the “co-owner” of Kanzi and of several other members of the family living in Des Moines, has been similarly set aside by the Ape Initiative. BHI laments Kanzi's passing.

BHI deplores the long-term separation of the human and bonobo families whose lives once became enmeshed. BHI deeply regrets that Kanzi's unique intellectual and personal capabilities could not be shown to the outside world in their proper light since Savage-Rumbaugh's removal in 2013. Through the crude downsizing of Kanzi's cultural environment since that period, Kanzi's voice has largely been silenced, many years before his tragic death. But his legacy continues, as will be soon be seen in further publications, exhibitions, and other initiatives. Moreover, Kanzi's relatives Nyota and Teco, who also have access to a reality mediated by human culture and language, continue to have many things to teach us, as do the other bonobos in Des Moines and elsewhere.

BHI is inviting all those who feel the pain of Kanzi's passing to ask for the restoration of a research trajectory that will focus on the dignity of the bonobo group. “Right now” (as Kanzi would often say with some sense of urgency) is the time for uniting and recreating the conditions of life and research that would be in phase with the cognitive potentiality and emotional needs of Nyota, Teco, and their friends and relatives. Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh should be given back access to the bonobo group. The language research should finally be restored in its full form. BHI wishes to lead that effort and help the Ape Initiative to reach that scholarly and moral goal.