Fifty years as a warrior, and she’s still out there fighting. Jane Goodall is one of the few people I’ve tried to treat as a role model, not very successfully, but even my feeble efforts have made me a better citizen of this tiny, beleaguered planet.
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c u n d gulag
Anne,
She’s truly a hero. And yet, I guarantee that most Americans don’t have a clue about who she is.
Sad, how stupid and ignorant our country has become.
J.W. Hamner
Chimps for the win! Jane Goodall is obviously the champ, but for anybody interested in how our fellow primates relate to ourselves, I recommend the writings of Frans de Waal.
I only have an amateur interest in the field, so I’d really appreciate some commentary by experts.
satby
Jane Goodall is a personal hero of mine too. Thanks for sharing this.
gnomedad
The embed is kinda cut off. Link to original, please?
WereBear
People like Jane Goodall shone a halogen light on the arrogance of us thinking we are some kind of divinely special being, soooo different from the other animals on the planet.
When we are not that different.
And the divinity is in all of us.
aimai
I still remember the thrill of being taken to a lecture by Jane Goodall here at Harvard. I must have been about seven or so? She was showing early film footage of her work. I was enthralled then and I am still in awe of her now. Not only was her work pioneering but she herself, as a young woman, was also a pioneer. There were pretty much no other women in science–though there were plenty of women doing important research as wives and as research assistants (as Jane herself started out). They just didn’t get up and give lectures very often.
aimai
Napoleon
I love Jane Goodall, and love the chimps. Thanks!
Mr. Furious
I’m 42, and I recall the work of Goodall quite clearly from my childhood. Can’t be sure whether it was a PBS thing or films we watched in school, but I’ve always known who she is.
I can also say with certainty that she was one of my first crushes.
Gus diZerega
I can only echo what has already been said. We are blessed that she is among us.
cay
I heard her speak a few years ago, and she opened by saying hello in different languages, including chimpanzee. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up! She also told a moving story about a male chimp who lost his mother. After the chimps gathered around her carcass and placed flowers on it, the male sat on a rock at sunset and looked at a waterfall for an hour. Unbelievable!
slag
Agreed. Jane Goodall is a real hero. An amazing person all around.
Anne Laurie
@gnomedad: __
If you go to abcnews.com, Dr. Goodall was the “Person of the Week” yesterday, and they’ve got links to some National Geographic coverage with her as well.
gil mann
@Mr. Furious:
Check her out on The Daily Show (fairly recently, maybe a few months back), giving Jon Stewart a monkey-kiss. Your crush’ll come flooding right back.
EDIT: my, how time flies–it was November ’09.
capuchin
I’m a long-time reader, first time commenter here at Balloon Juice.
I have actually been lucky enough to conduct research with the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park in recent years, which is as amazing and wonderful a place as the numerous Nat’l Geo specials and other programs would lead one to believe. I’ve also been lucky enough to met Jane several times, including during some of her recent visits to Gombe.
One of the things that has often impressed researchers like myself is that even though Jane hasn’t been active in behavioral research for many years her memory is exceptional, and she still has a strong grasp of the scientific literature, both past and present. More than once I’ve been at dinners or cocktails where someone voices some ‘new’ idea or hypothesis they’d like to explore, only to have Jane pipe up with, ‘check my book, page xxx’!” Sure enough, the ‘new’ idea is one she had written about (if not fully supported with data), ten or twenty years previously.
Even among academics (where she does have her critics), I think it’s under-appreciated what an influence she has had on the study of animal behavior. She wasn’t the first researcher to go out and try to live among animals to better understand them, but the approach she took really laid the groundwork for the modern discipline of primatology and (to a lesser extent, perhaps) the way we study wild animals in general.
Cris
When my first son was old enough to like hearing books read aloud, but young enough to not care what book it was, I read him Goodall’s In the Shadow Of Man.
A couple years later, she made an appearance in Bozeman — which is just a little too far away to be a comfortable drive. I was so close to going, and bringing my little boy along. I regret not making that, even though my reasons were sound.
Anyway, I’m envious of you, capuchin. She’s a truly beautiful person.