Before she got involved with chimpanzees or even stepped foot upon
Africa, Goodall worked as a secretary in Oxford University in the
mid-1950s since her mother could not afford to sent her to get a college
education. A few years later in 1956, Goodall was invited to go visit a
friend’s farm in Kenya. So she quit her job and moved back to her
hometown of Bournemouth, picking up a job as a waitress to earn enough
money to buy a two-way ticket to Africa and back. In three weeks, she
traveled by ship from London to Mombasa, Kenya, where she eventually met
Louis Leakey, who was a famous anthropologist and paleontologist. He
was also a curator of the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi and hired Goodall
as his assistant and secretary. Goodall and another student helped Leaky
and his wife, Mary, in his digs of human fossils in the Olduvai Gorge.
For the 23-year-old Jane Goodall, luck was on her side. Leakey was
looking for someone to go to Tanzania to study chimpanzees because he
believed that a long-term study of higher primate behavior would glean
clues to human and ape evolution. At that time, very little is known
about wild chimps, and past studies had proved unsuccessful because past
expedition teams were too large and frightened the chimps or the
scientists lacked the patience to study the chimps in the field. Leakey
had a hunch on Goodall that she may be able to do what no other
scientists could do. So he sent her to Gombe Stream National Park to
study the chimps. Many scientists vented their disagreement with
Leakey’s choice because she lacked a basic college degree or field
experience. Leakey paid no attention. He believed that Goodall’s
fascination with wildlife, patience, and uncluttered mind from
conventional scientific methods at the time fit the job perfectly.
Within weeks of observation and recording her findings, Goodall
discovered that chimps had social behaviors that were akin to humans,
such as vocal language, social hierarchy, and grooming. The best-known
discovery was that chimps can make and use tools to obtain food, such as
catching termites by poking a customized stick into a termite nest or
rotten log. This debunked the then-current notion that humans were the
only animals that can make tools. Scientists at the time also thought
that chimps were vegetarians. Goodall proved that it wasn’t so when she
observed and documented chimpanzees occasionally hunted (in packs) and
ate small mammals — including monkeys.
Her research and field work throughout the 1960s and 1970s made her
into a science celebrity among the media and scientific community. Her
first major book, In the Shadow of Man, was published in 1971.
It described chimpanzee behavior based on her field study, bridging
scientific research and science fiction. Goodall worked with African
governments and private businesses to establish conservations and
profitable tourism programs that can help protect wild chimps (and other
wildlife) and their environment.
Since 1975, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute in many countries,
including Tanzania, Republic on Congo, United Kingdom, United States,
China, South Africa, and Canada. In the years after her research, she
had spoken out against using chimps for medical studies due to ethical
problems and animal abuse issues. She had received numerous awards and
honorable recognitions from the various organizations, such as the
National Geographic Society (1988) and the San Diego Zoological Society
(1974), and was named a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations (2002).
In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles invested Goodall as a
Dame of the British Empire for “services to the Environment and
Conservation.”
With over 50 years of work that changed the course of science and
wildlife conservation, Jane Goodall is still not considering to retire
when she turns 80 on April 3. For the world-renowned chimpanzee expert
who had already dedicated her life on behalf of one of humans’ closest
relatives, her birthday could be just another day for her among the
chimps.
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