Gary Shapiro

Gary L. Shapiro, Ph.D. began his involvement with orangutans 51 years ago in the field of primate cognition and learning. He was the first person (1973-1975) to teach a symbolic communication system to an orangutan named Aazk (at the now Chaffee Zoological Park, Fresno, CA) and the first person to have taught sign language to orangutans in the species' natural environment, the forests of Tanjung Puting National Park, Indonesian Borneo (1978-1980; 1981)