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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.

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