![]() Goodall’s scores of honours include the Medal of Tanzania, the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, Japan’s prestigious Kyoto Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research 2003, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science, and the Gandhi/King Award for Nonviolence. The Institute is a leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats and is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programmes in Africa and the Roots & Shoots education programme in more than 70 countries. Today, the mission of the Jane Goodall Institute is to advance the power of individuals to take informed and compassionate action to improve the environment for all living things. In 1977, Jane founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation to provide ongoing support for field research on wild chimpanzees. And she and her field staff in 1987 would observe adolescent Spindle “adopt” three-year-old orphan Mel, even though the infant was not a close relative. ![]() Goodall would also chart surprising courtship patterns in which males force females onto consortships in remote spots for days or even months. Members of the Kasakela group systematically annihilated members of the “Kahama” splinter group.ĭr. In early 1974, a “four-year war” began at Gombe, the first record of long-term warfare in non-human primates. Through the years her work continued to yield surprising insights, such as the unsettling discovery that chimpanzees engage in a primitive form of brutal ‘warfare’. She wrote of lasting chimpanzee family relationships. She defied scientific convention by giving the Gombe chimps names instead of numbers, and insisted on the validity of her observations that animals have distinct personalities, minds and emotions. Goodall changed and enriched the field of primatology. It is hard to overstate the degree to which Dr. Soon thereafter, she returned to Tanzania to continue research and to establish the Gombe Stream Research Centre. In 1965, Jane earned her PhD in Ethology (the study of animal behaviour) from Cambridge University. On hearing of Jane’s observation, her mentor Louis Leakey said: “Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”Īlso in her first year at Gombe, Jane observed chimps hunting and eating bushpigs and other animals, disproving theories that chimpanzees were primarily vegetarians and fruit eaters who only occasionally supplemented their diet with insects and small rodents. Scientists thought humans were the only species to make tools, but here was evidence to the contrary. ![]() One day in October 1960 she saw chimps David Greybeard and Goliath strip leaves off twigs to fashion tools for fishing termites from a nest. But she persisted, watching from a distance with binoculars, and gradually the chimps allowed her closer. Must We Redefine Man?Īt first, the Gombe chimps fled whenever they saw Jane. Jane’s work in Tanzania would prove more successful than anyone had imagined. In 1965, Jane became the 8th person in the world who achieved a doctoral degree without a bachelor’s degree.Although it was unheard of for a woman to venture into the wilds of the African forest, the trip meant the fulfillment of Jane Goodall’s childhood dream. In 1962 Leakey supported Jane in applying for the PhD program at Cambridge University so that could continue her discoveries in an academic environment. Jane Goodall’s research ultimately helped to change the way we understand chimpanzees, other animals, our role in caring for the planet we all share and the way that we look at evolution and ourselves forever. The public was fascinated by her findings. At that time tool-related behaviour was not considered to be a habitual trait in wild animals. Then she started to observe a wild chimpanzee, which she named David Greybeard, carefully modifying plant material in order to use it as a tool to fish for termites. Through patience and persistence, she won the trust of the chimpanzees. Her research project was unlike any other. She was only 26 years old when she made this landmark discovery – equipped with little more than a notebook, binoculars, optimism and desire to learn more about these incredible animals. Jane first set foot in what is now known as Gombe Stream National Park in 1960, when she launched her pioneering research with wild chimpanzees. Leakey thought understanding primates would shed light onto understanding human behavior and believe Jane was the right person to undertake this mission. Jane Goodall finally made it to Africa and met anthropologist Louis Leakey who would later become her mentor and teacher.
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