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Both ABC and CBS closed their newscasts with animal stories. For CBS, finally, it was the end of the "18-day circus" as Sandra Hughes put it. The pair of humpback whales whose every blow and tail thrash had been so lovingly documented "made a quiet exit through the Golden Gate into the open ocean sometime overnight." So there was no triumphant money shot of their spouts signaling survival: "It looks like they gave us the slip," shrugged NBC's George Lewis.
True to form, ABC did not consider the whales newsworthy enough to warrant a reporter. Instead John Berman was sent to the Great Ape Trust laboratory in Des Moines Iowa where primatologists are in dialogue with ten of our animal cousins. Humans use speech and apes respond by tapping on a keyboard of 350 lexigrams, symbols that represent thoughts or objects. "You are the first ape that I have ever interviewed," Berman confessed to Kanzi the bonobo.
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