Janis and Lucy: Channel 4 documentary to tell story of chimpanzee raised as a human

One-off special focuses on the chimp's relationship with the human helping her to become wild

A chimpanzee at a German zoo (AFP via Getty Images)

A new Channel 4 documentary will tell the story of a chimpanzee who had to learn to be wild after being raised as human.

Created in collaboration with Keo Films, one-off special Janis and Lucy focuses on the relationship between the chimpanzee, Lucy, and a young student who befriended her.

From when she was just two days old, Lucy was raised to act like human as part of an experiment by the University of Oklahoma in the 1960s.

However, by the time she’d reached 11, Lucy was too strong to be kept by a human family. In order to teach her to adapt to life in the wild, she was taken to Gambia in 1977 along with the student, Janis Carter.

Carter was brought on in hope of staying with Lucy while she got used to behaving like a wild chimp, but after Lucy struggled to adapt, the pair lived in the wild on an uninhabited island together for six years.

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Janis and Lucy follows Carter’s story and features first-person testimony, something she has never given on the topic before. 

It will also contain archival footage and photos from both Lucy’s time in the US and Gambia. It will air on Channel 4 this spring.

“Janis has waited 40 years to tell this story,” said executive producer Matt Cole. “It takes us back to a very different time, but it has a powerful message for today,” says executive producer Matt Cole.

Sacha Mirzoeff, commissioning editor at Channel 4, said: “The unique story of Janis and Lucy is set in a very different time - one where the boundaries of our relationship with animals were surprisingly different to today.

“And yet it also raises the eternal question about what divides humans from our nearest animal relatives and offers profound discoveries about the values we share with our nearest animal relatives.”