One could argue that this isn't talking to a well adjusted animal living in its native habitat. It is talking to a long term research subject/victim suffering at the hands of "researchers" while trying to teach it a language that is utterly alien to it. Of course knowing how animals communicate in their natural habitat is not useful if you want to ask them deep questions like "what do you think about global warming" or "do you think god exists", to which they probably wouldn't have an answer anyway.