A

Goodall, Jane

British Zoologist 1934-

Jane Goodall, the world's leading expert on chimpanzees, was born in London, England. Almost nothing was known about chimpanzees until Goodall conducted her field studies in East Africa. Her study of these animals in the wild has revealed that chimpanzees have many striking similarities to humans. They are our closest relatives in the animal world, having 98 percent of the same genes.

Goodall grew up on the southern coast of England. From earliest childhood, she was obsessed with animals, her favorite reading being Dr. Doolittle and Tarzan books. Goodall's unusual dream of going to Africa to live with animals was encouraged by her mother. Goodall attended secretarial school, and then got a job. When a friend invited her on a trip to Kenya, she raised money by working as a waitress. At the age of twenty-three, Goodall began her adventure, traveling to Kenya by boat. There she sought out Dr. Louis Leakey, a famous scientist who studied paleontology (the study of ancient life) and anthropology (the study of humans). She became Leakey's assistant, and he soon decided Goodall was the person he had been looking for to lead a study of wild chimpanzees in East Africa. Because the British authorities thought it unsafe for a young woman to live alone among wild animals in Africa, Goodall's mother Vanne agreed to accompany her for the first three months. In 1960, Goodall arrived at Gombe National Park in Tanganyika (now Tanzania).

In the beginning, the chimpanzees were afraid of the young woman who silently and patiently watched them. It took nearly six months for the chimpanzees to accept her presence, allowing Goodall to follow them on their daily travels through the forest. She named the chimpanzees and grew to love them. She made one important discovery after another. It was Goodall who first learned that chimpanzees make and use tools to obtain food and defend themselves. Previously, it was believed that only humans made tools. Goodall learned that chimpanzees hunt and are occasional meat eaters. She was also first to document their complex family relationships and emotional attachments.

Goodall left Africa to study ethology (the scientific study of animal behavior) at the University of Cambridge. When she received her Ph.D in 1965, she was one of very few candidates to receive a Ph.D. without first having an A.B. degree. She promptly returned to Tanzania to continue her field studies and establish the Gombe Stream Research Centre. Research at this facility is still being conducted to this day, mostly by Tanzanians.

Despite her intense studies, Goodall found the time to marry twice and raise a son, Hugo. She wrote many famous books including In the Shadow of Man (1971) and The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (1986). Goodall has received numerous awards, including the J. Paul Getty Wildlife Conservation Prize in 1984. In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute, located in Washington D.C., to educate people about chimpanzees and their preservation.