A tear-jerking new documentary tells how an orangutan raised as a human in a unique experiment ultimately became the victim of his own intelligence

Chantek the orangutan is a very special creature. He’s not just the only orangutan that has ever learned to communicate with humans, using sign language.



He is also affectionate, mischievous and adorable – and his story will break your heart.



By the time he was five years old, this endlessly inventive and intelligent animal had rewritten everything scientists thought they knew about the orangutan brain.



He could use tools, play jokes, hold a conversation and even invent his own words. But three decades later, Chantek – who describes himself as half-orangutan, half-human – is an exhibit in a zoo, forbidden to enjoy his favourite activities or to continue his language studies with teacher Dr Lyn Miles.

Chantek is the only orangutan that has ever learned to communicate with humans, using sign language

The Ape Who Went To College, an Animal Planet documentary, tells Chantek’s story from 1978 when Dr Miles, then a young naturalist, was hired by the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga to conduct a unique experiment.

A baby orangutan had been rejected by his mother; Dr Miles would raise him like a human child, even dressing him in nappies and romper suits, to test whether an ape could learn human behaviour.



Orangutans can’t talk, because their mouths are not adapted for speech, so Dr Miles learned sign language. ‘I thought it would be big news if I could prove he’d signed just one word,’ she says. ‘Other scientists told me orangutans weren’t interesting because they could never communicate.’



Within two weeks, Chantek had proved the doubters wrong. He was nine months old, an age when most human babies are still babbling, but he quickly grasped words and started putting them together: ‘Food-eat’ and ‘Gimme-drink’. Soon he was adding words for his favourite things: apple, Lyn, bike, toy.



'He had a cot, but he liked to sleep in Dr Miles’s arms. ‘It was magical,’ she admits. ‘Sometimes I felt like his servant, but I very much thought of Chantek as my foster son.’



As he grew, Chantek started to attend a kindergarten with the pre-school children of university staff. The toddlers accepted him as a classmate, and he joined in with lessons such as painting. He loved to climb, but he also enjoyed cuddles, tickles and having his fur vacuumed.



A photograph of Chantek less than a year old with primatologist Lyn Miles already makingthe sign for 'drink'

By the time he was four, Chantek was a familiar sight on campus. His photo appeared in the university yearbooks alongside the students, and he sat in on lectures: he loved human company. Chantek had a riotous sense of humour. His favourite game was to steal food from students and he’d hide in the women’s toilets, wait until a student went into a cubicle and then stretch an arm under the door to provoke a fit of shrieks.



His language was becoming more complex. When he didn’t know a sign, he adapted others: ketchup was ‘tomato-toothpaste’, and a Big Mac was ‘cheese-meat-bread’.



A campus worker who had suffered an accident to his hand was ‘Dave Missing-Finger’. Chantek loved outings too, including trips to the lake where he’d bathe, and to the takeaway. But his interaction with the human world was causing problems. Drivers would gawk at the sight of an ape in a car, and sometimes Dr Miles was forced to pull off the road for safety. University lawyers voiced fears of a lawsuit if Chantek caused a pile-up on the motorway.



Meanwhile, Chantek was becoming more adventurous: his fingers were so strong and his use of tools so adept he could dismantle any fence to roam the campus at will. He was getting bigger, and some students were scared of him. Dr Miles argued that Chantek needed to be with other apes so that his education could continue.



But then, at the age of eight, he was transferred without warning to a research lab, the Yerkes Primate Centre in Atlanta, where he was imprisoned in a tiny cage. Dr Miles was devastated. She fought for weeks before she was even allowed to see him: when she finally gained access to the centre, Chantek was motionless in his cage.



The scientist tried desperately to explain what was happening – Chantek signed back a plea, ‘Mother Lyn, get the car, go home.’ Fighting back tears, Dr Miles asked if he was ill. ‘Hurt,’ said Chantek. She asked him where it hurt: ‘Feelings,’ he replied.

After two years Chantek was moved to Atlanta Zoo, where he lives with other orangutans. He cannot accept they’re the same species as him, though – he calls them ‘orange dogs’. Dr Miles now has to go to the zoo as a visitor to see her beloved Chantek. He asks her for his favourite foods; he’s forgotten many words, but still remembers the sign for ‘I love you’.



‘Back in 1978, I didn’t anticipate this emotional involvement,’ admits Dr Miles. ‘The documentary explores some of the uneasiness we feel now about this project, but also how privileged I’ve been to know the most unforgettable character. I feel like I had the luckiest job in the world.’

Christopher Stevens

