Education
In 1978, she earned her Doctor of Philosophy in anthropology from the University of Connecticut.
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Lyn Miles
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Career
Miles is known for a 1970s experiment in which a baby orangutan named Chantek was videotaped during sign language acquisition. She was teaching sign language providing a full human experience in the immersive-participant-observation way, the same way human babies are taught during infancy. Miles advocates that no enculturated great apes should be treated as captive experimental animals, but as true "orang utans", which means "persons of the forest", and eventually be declared as legal persons under the law.
She is a strong supporter of orangutan conservation.
Miles and her work has been the subject of several documentaries. 2014 The Ape Who Went to College, My Wild Affair, Animal Planet 2000 They Call Him Chantek, New York Festivals Finalist, Animal Planet Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales, Public Broadcasting Service NOVA L. L. West. South. L. L. L. West. South.
