Jane Goodall was born in April 3, 1934 in London
and educated in Bournemouth. Since her childhood,
she was connected with animals in some way or
the other. She was an ardent fan of Tarzan. Her
father presented her with a chicken’s egg
when she was six years old with the intention
that she would raise the bird as her pet. This
bird became her first pet. It also introduced
her to the animal kingdom. As she grew older,
her interest in animals also grew and she aspired
to work in a job which involved them. She took
secretarial courses, and she waited tables to
help fund her first trip to Africa. She went to
Africa and worked with the world famous anthropologist,
Louis Leakey at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzees Reserve
on Lake Tanganyika where she had to watch for
nearly ten years the behavior of the rarely observed
lives of wild chimpanzees and record them.
She loved the experience of being amongst chimpanzees
however, initially they shied away from her. After
a while they finally got used to her and she was
successful in being amongst them. She was able
to be with the chimps in their environment and
they also became very comfortable with her. She
was able to witness the various phases of their
lives like fights, giving birth to their younger
ones, feeding etc.
With her growing knowledge of the various animal
behaviors, she pursued her education in the study
of animal behavior which is called Ethology. She
became the most famous ethologist in the world
due to her ability to live with chimps and observe
their various behaviors. She was also able to
provide advice to breeders and conservationists.
She is now a member of the teaching faculty in
various universities around the world giving talks
about her various experiments with the wild chimps
at Gombe. [Weiss, 2004]
She once commented on her favorite topic, chimps
as “Chimpanzees have given me so much. The
long hours I spent with them in the forest have
enriched my life beyond measure. What I have learned
from them has snapped my understandings of human
behavior, of our place in nature."
She happens to be only ethologist who has been
covered by National Geographic magazine the maximum
number of times. Her name has become synonymous
with names of chimps like Flo, Davd Greybeard
and Freud. Her study of chimps gives insight of
humans’ humanness and behaviors and also
indicates humans’ association to chimps
in various ways like that about 98% of human DNA
is similar to that of chimps. The chimps’
facial expressions are usually like that of humans
however, it is difficult to correspond them to
any kind of emotions. Behaviors of chimps are
common to that of humans like chimps greet one
another with a hug, kiss or a gentle touch with
their hand and babies are usually with their mothers
till they are fully grown as well as the fact
that they are omnivorous contrary to the earlier
belief that they were herbivorous.
Another significant discovery by Jane was that
the chimps like humans made and used tools for
various applications. This breakthrough was done
when David Greybeard, the chimp used a thick grass
blade as a tool to catch termites. More than the
thick grass blade being used, the more amazing
discovery by Jane was that David had used a metallic
piece to sharpen the blade. This was the first
recorded incidence of tool manufacturing in an
animal other than humans. [Nichols 1995, Goodall
1971]
Jane received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University
in 1965 making her one the only eight people who
had received their Ph.D. without a bachelor’s
degree. Commenting on the findings on the similarity
between humans and chimps, she said, "It
is not easy to study emotions even when the subjects
are human. As we try to come to grips with the
emotions of beings progressively more different
from ourselves the task, obviously, becomes increasingly
difficult. If we ascribe human emotions to nonhuman
animals we are accused of being anthropomorphic-a
cardinal sin in ethology. But is it so terrible?
If we test the effect of drugs on chimpanzees
because they are biologically so similar to ourselves,
if we accept that there are dramatic similarities
in chimpanzee and human brain and nervous system,
is it not logical to assume that there will be
similarities also in at least the more basic feelings,
emotions, moods of the two species?" [Jane
Goodall 1990, p.16]
References:
Nichols, M. (1995). Jane Goodall. National Geographic.
December. 105-131.
Goodall, J. (1990). Through a window. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Publishing, p.16
Weiss Adrian G., JANE GOODALL 1934- , website
visited on 30th December, 2004, http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/janegoodall.html