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Jane Goodall

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Jane Goodall
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Jane Goodall
Dame Jane Goodall, DBE (born April 3, 1934) is an English primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist, probably best-known for conducting a forty-five year study of chimpanzee social and family life, as director of the Jane Goodall Institute in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.

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Biography

Valerie Jane Goodall was born in London, England on April 3, 1934. Jane was the first child of Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and the former Margaret Myfanwe Joseph. Her younger sister, Judy, was born in 1938. Jane's father gave her a life-like toy monkey called Jubilee, although friends thought it would scare her. Today, the toy still sits on her dresser in London. After the divorce of their parents when Jane was only 8, Jane and Judy moved with their mother to the seaside city of Bournemouth, England, where Jane's maternal grandmother and two great-aunts lived.

Goodall was interested in animals from her youth; this, coupled with her secretarial training prompted noted anthropologist Louis Leakey to hire her as his secretary during her trip to Kenya in 1957 and 1958. It was through her association with Leakey that Goodall began studying the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park (then known as Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve) in July, 1960. Leakey arranged for Goodall to return to the UK where she earned a doctorate in ethology from the University of Cambridge in 1964.

Goodall has been married twice: first, in 1964, to an aristocratic wildlife photographer, Baron Hugo van Lawick; they divorced amicably in 1974. Their son, Hugo, known as 'Grub', was born in 1967. She married Derek Bryceson, (a member of Tanzania’s parliament and the director of that country’s national parks) in 1975, and they remained married until his death in 1980.

Goodall has had many honors bestowed upon her for her environmental and humanitarian work. She was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire in a ceremony held in Buckingham Palace in 2004. In April 2002, Secretary-General Kofi Annan named Dr Goodall a United Nations Messenger of Peace. Her other honors include the Medal of Tanzania, Japan's prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science, and the Gandhi-King Award for Nonviolence. She is also a member of the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine.

A bronze bust created of Dame Jane Goodall was authorized by the subject and created by Canadian artist Christian Cardell Corbet, PPCPA, CGAM, FRSA. Corbet also created two other art medallion one to mark 'Gombe 40' and presented it to Goodall at Toronto, Ontario in spring 2001.

Professional accomplishments

Goodall is known for her landmark study of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), which supports the Gombe research and is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. With 19 offices around the world, the Institute is widely recognized for innovative, community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa and a global youth program, Roots & Shoots, which currently has over 8,000 groups in 96 countries. Today, Dr Goodall devotes virtually all of her time to advocating on behalf of chimpanzees and the environment, traveling nearly 300 days a year.

Goodall was instrumental in the recognition of social learning, thinking, acting, and culture in wild chimpanzees, their differentiation from the bonobo, and the inclusion of both species along with the gorilla as Hominids.

One of Goodall's major contributions to the field of primatology was the discovery of tool use in chimpanzees. She discovered that some chimpanzees poke pieces of grass into termite mounds. The termites would grab onto the blade of grass with their mandibles and the chimpanzees would then just pull the grass out and eat the termites. Previously, only humans were thought to use tools, and was considered the only difference between us and other animals. This discovery forced society to redefine the definition of being human[[Citing sources citation needed]]. Another characteristic of the chimpanzee that Jane Goodall discovered was the cooperative hunting of red colobus monkeys.

Goodall also set herself apart from the traditional conventions of the time in her study of primates by naming the animals she studied, instead of assigning each a number. This numbering was a nearly universal practice at the time, and thought to be important in the removal of one's self from the potential for emotional attachment to the subject being studied.

References in popular culture

Goodall has also appeared (cast as herself) in an episode of Nickelodeon's animated series The Wild Thornberrys entitled "The Trouble With Darwin." She's also a character in Irregular Webcomic!'s "Steve and Terry" theme. A parody of Goodall in an episode of The Simpsons featured her as a diamond-hoarding slave driver of chimpanzees.

Dr. Goodall is honored by the Walt Disney company with a plaque on the The Tree of Life at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park, along-side a carving of her beloved David Greybeard. [link] The story goes that when she was invited to visit the developing Animal Kingdom park as a consultant and saw the Tree of Life, she didn't see a chimp as part of the tree. To rectify this situation, the Imagineers added the carving of David Graybeard and the plaque honoring her at the entrance to the It's Tough to be a Bug show.

Frodo

In 1988, cartoonist Gary Larson visited Gombe National Park and was attacked by Frodo, a chimp described by Goodall as a "bully". Larson escaped with cuts and bruises. Frodo was born in 1976, named and studied by Jane Goodall.

Bigfoot

In 2004 Jane Goodall announced she believes in the existence of undiscovered primates including bigfoot and yeti, and believes the scientific community should attempt to locate and study these primates.

Traces of these mysterious "primates" have been found, but there is no hard evidence that these creatures actually exist. (see Cryptozoology)

Awards

Publications

Books for adults

Children's Books

Films

(This list is mostly taken from http://www.janegoodall.org/jane/pub.asp.)

External links

 

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