Explorers & Contenders: Jane Goodall

Episode Summary

Jane Goodall is one of the world's most famous primatologists. She is best known for her decades-long study of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. In 1960, without a college degree, Jane began observing chimps in Gombe at the urging of archaeologist Louis Leakey. At the time, little was known about chimpanzee behavior. Jane made groundbreaking discoveries about chimps, including that they use tools, have distinct personalities, and display human-like emotions. She also observed their capacity for violence. Her findings challenged long-held beliefs about what makes humans unique. Jane earned a PhD from Cambridge in ethology in 1965. She married and divorced photographer Hugo van Lawick, with whom she had a son. After Lawick's death, she married and was widowed by Derek Bryson. Jane has promoted conservation globally through media appearances, writing, and founding the Jane Goodall Institute. She has received many honors for her work, including being named a UN Messenger of Peace. Now in her 80s, Jane continues to advocate for environmental and human rights causes. Jane Goodall's research and advocacy fundamentally changed scientific and popular perceptions of chimpanzees. She helped shift thinking about what makes humans special and sparked new appreciation for animal cognition and emotions.

Episode Show Notes

Dame Jane Goodall (1934-present) is one of the world’s most famous primatologists. She is best known for her decades-long research of wild chimpanzees.

Episode Transcript

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Jane Goodall was born Valerie Jane Morris Goodall in 1934 in London. Her father, Mortimer, was a businessman, and her mother, Margaret, was a novelist who wrote under the pen name Van Morris Goodall. From a young age, Jane was fascinated with animals. When she was four, Jane hid for hours in a henhouse just to observe how hens lay eggs. As an adolescent, Jane dreamt of life in Africa where she could study and work with animals. When she finally did move there as an adult, she said upon arrival that it felt like coming home. In 1957, Jane moved to Kenya. While there, she met Dr. Louis Leakey, a famous archaeologist and paleontologist who offered Jane a job as his secretary. In 1960, Dr. Leakey sent Jane to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. When I arrived at the Gombe Stream Reserve, SPEAKER_09: I felt that at long last, my childhood ambition was being realized. Always, I had wanted to go out into the field and study animals. On that first day, when I looked at the wild and rugged mountains where the chimpanzees live, I knew that my task was not going to be easy. In Gombe, without a college degree, SPEAKER_05: Jane began her study of wild chimpanzees. At the time, little was known about chimpanzee behavior. Jane later wrote, it was not permissible, at least not in ethological circles, to talk about an animal's mind. Only humans had minds. But Jane observed that chimps had unique personalities with a capacity to feel and display affection, support, joy, and sorrow. It was obvious, watching them, that they could be happy SPEAKER_08: and sad. And then the communication signals, kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting on the back, shaking the fist, swaggering, throwing rocks, all of these things done in the same context we do them. In the fall of 1960, Jane witnessed a chimpanzee SPEAKER_05: squatting on a termite mound, placing pieces of grass into the mound, and then raising the grass to his mouth. Jane discovered that the chimp had been using the grass stem as a tool to fish for termites. It had been previously accepted that humans were the only animals capable of making tools. When Jane sent her groundbreaking findings to Dr. Leakey, he wrote, I'm not going to be able to do that. We must now redefine man, redefine tools, or accept chimpanzees as human. Over the course of her study at Gombe, Jane also found that chimps have an aggressive side, systematically hunting and eating smaller primates. Jane even observed intergroup violence between two groups of chimps. In 1963, National Geographic published an article about Jane. Through that piece, she connected with photographer Hugo van Laueck. Hugo and Jane married one year later and eventually had a son named Hugo Eric Lewis. Dr. Leakey urged Jane to attend the University of Cambridge, where she earned a PhD in mythology in 1965. She became the eighth person in the history of Cambridge to be permitted to pursue a PhD without an undergraduate degree. About a decade after they married, in 1974, Jane and Hugo divorced. A year later, Jane married Derek Bryson, a member of Tanzania's National Assembly, who died in 1980. Jane used her incredible discoveries to promote conservation to people all over the world, appearing on television, writing about her research, and even founding a global nonprofit called the Jane Goodall Institute. In 2002, Jane was named a UN Messenger of Peace by Secretary General Kofi Annan. In 2004, Prince Charles deemed Jane a dame of the British Empire. Today, Jane continues to champion human rights and conservation through the Jane Goodall Institute. Jane is credited with challenging long-held beliefs about chimpanzees. Her discoveries shifted the ways humans see, observe, and think about plants. Well, for me, animals are, you know, they're part of our world. SPEAKER_08: And just because we can destroy our world and exterminate species for ourselves doesn't mean that we should do it. I don't think we have the right to do it. And we look in books and see dinosaurs. I don't want my great grandchildren to only know chimps and gorillas and giraffes and elephants from books. And so, you know, we are destroying our own future. All month, we're talking about explorers and contenders. SPEAKER_05: On Sundays, we're taking a break from our normal episodes to highlight women we've previously covered who did amazing things in health care. For more on why we're doing what we're doing, check out our Encyclopedia Wamanica newsletter, Wamanica Weekly. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Encyclopedia Wamanica. And you can follow me directly on Twitter and Instagram at Wamanica. And you can follow me directly on Twitter at Jenny M. Kaplan. Before you go, I want to tell you about another show I think you might like. 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