Jane
Goodall
Much of the information we have today about
chimpanzees comes from the groundbreaking, long-term research of the great
conservationist, Jane Goodall.
Jane Goodall was born in London,
England, on April 3, 1934. On her second birthday, her father gave her a toy
chimpanzee named Jubilee. Jubilee was named after a baby chimp in the London
Zoo, and seemed to foretell the course Jane’s life would take. To this day,
Jubilee sits in a chair in Jane’s London home. From an early age, Jane was
fascinated by animals and animal stories. By the age of 10, she was talking
about going to Africa to live among the animals there. At the time, in the early
1940s, this was a radical idea because women did not go to Africa by
themselves.
As a young woman. Jane finished school in London,
attended secretarial school, and then worked for a documentary filmmaker for a
while. When a school friend invited her to visit Kenya, she worked as a waitress
until she had earned the fare to travel there by boat. She was 23 years
old.
Once in Kenya, she met Dr. Louis Leakey, a famous
paleontologist and anthropologist. He was impressed with her thorough knowledge
of Africa and its wildlife, and hired her to assist him and his wife on a
fossil-hunting expedition to Olduvai Gorge. Dr. Leakey soon realized that Jane
was the perfect person to complete a study he had been planning for some time.
She expressed her interest in the idea of studying animals by living in the wild
with them, rather than studying dead animals through paleontology.
Dr. Leakey and Jane began planning a study of a group of chimpanzees who
were living on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Kenya. At first, the British
authorities would not approve their plan. At the time, they thought it was too
dangerous for a woman to live in the wilds of Africa alone. But Jane’s mother,
Vanne, agreed to join her so that she would not be alone. Finally, the
authorities gave Jane the clearance she needed in order to go to Africa and
begin her study.
In July of 1960, Jane and her mother arrived at
Gombe National Park in what was then called Tanganyika and is now called
Tanzania. Jane faced many challenges as she began her work. The chimpanzees did
not accept her right away, and it took months for them to get used to her
presence in their territory. But she was very patient and remained focused on
her goal. Little by little, she was able to enter their world.
At first, she was able to watch the chimpanzees only from a great
distance, using binoculars. As time passed, she was able to move her observation
point closer to them while still using camouflage. Eventually, she was able to
sit among them, touching, patting, and even feeding them. It was an amazing
accomplishment for Jane, and a breakthrough in the study of animals in tile
wild. Jane named all of the chimpanzees that she studied, stating in her
journals that she felt they each had a unique personality.
One
of the first significant observations that Jane made during the study was that
chimpanzees make and use tools, much like humans do, to help them get food. It
was previously thought that humans alone used tools. Also thanks to Jane’s
research, we now know that chimps eat meat as well as plants and fruits. In many
ways, she has helped us to see how chimpanzees and humans are similar. In doing
so, she has made us more sympathetic toward these creatures, while helping us to
better understand ourselves. The study started by Jane Goodall in
1960 is now the longest field study of any animal species in their natural
habitat. Research continues to this day in Gombe and is conducted by a team of
trained Tanzanians.
Jane’s life has included much more than just
her study of the chimps in Tanzania. She pursued a graduate degree while still
conducting her study, receiving her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1965. In
1984, she received the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize for "helping
millions of people understand the importance of wildlife conservation to life on
this planet." She has been married twice: Fast to a photographer and then to the
director of National Parks. She has one son.
Dr. Jane Goodall is
now the world’s most renowned authority on chimpanzees, having studied their
behaviour for nearly 40 years. She has published many scientific articles, has
written two books, and has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking work. The
Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation was
founded in 1977 in California but moved to the Washington, D.G., area in 1998.
Its goal is to take the actions necessary to improve the environment for all
living things.
Dr. Goodall now travels extensively, giving
lectures, visiting zoos and chimp sanctuaries, and talking to young people
involved in environmental education. She is truly a great conservationist and an
amazing human being. |
