How Jane Goodall changes the way we see animals – and the world

Jane Goodall, who has died older 91, changed the world through the way she saw animals, especially chimpanzees.

In 1960, when she was 26, she observed a chimpanzee she had named David Graybeard Fishing for Termites with a twig he had removed leaves. “At that time,” she said later, “it was believed that people and only people used and made tools. I was told from school and forward that the best definition of a human was the man the tool-but I had just seen a chimpanzee tool manufacturer in action.

She reports that she found her mentor, paleoanthropist Louis Leakey, who sent a famous telegram in response: “Now we have to restore ‘, redfine’ man ‘or accept chimpanzees as human.”

In the end, we things the middle option and located for some other things that we could do that other animals couldn’t. But Goodall’s work was crucial to undermining the view of human exceptionalism and superiority that had not only prevailed among scientists but in society as a whole.

Her work was aiming for the assumption of French philosopher René Descartes, who had supported the exploitation of animals and the destruction of the environment for 400 years. Descartes said that animals have no soul and can consider machines we can use as we want. Goodall showed that Chimns had intelligence and foresight to design and build tools, but she also emerged their feelings and personalities. Some were calm, like David Graybeard, others shy, curious or feisty.

In this, her worked it worked by another world -changing scientist with similar brilliant observation powers. In his book Expression of feelings in humans and animalsCharles Darwin tried to explain the development of facial expressions and attribute them to emotional states: jealousy, rage, love and so on. But he did it as well as people and people, and the company rejected it.

The book was poorly monitored at the time and neglected for more than 100 years. Goodall’s work in the 1960s was also originally settled and even despised. It didn’t help she was a young woman without a degree. Both Darwin and Goodall were driven by indelible curiosity and a power of patient, intense observation – and these qualities underlie their success. (When New scientist When she first asked her what young scientists need, she repeated, “Patience, in huge Oodles and bucket.”) We now understand that both Darwin and Goodall were right: Many animals have feelings, feelings and inner life.

Goodall was chosen by Leakey to study the gomb of Gombe in what is now Tanzania. Leakey was interested in understanding human development and deriving the construction of the common tribal father to chimpanzees and humans, and he decided that studying wild chimpanzees that no one had ever done would be a good way to do it. He wanted someone who was objective of established scientific thinking, and he thought a woman would make a more patient, empathetic field biologist. It is unlikely that a trained biologist would have made the breakthroughs Goodall did.

For starters, her observations of chimpanzees were distant glimpses through binoculars. But gradually she won their acceptance. The first to trust her was the one she called David Graybeard, a man with white hair on the chin. (She later wanted to tingle a PhD at Cambridge, be reprimanded for giving animal names and not numbers, but for her it was natural to name them.) She saw David Graybeard strip leaves from a twig and then use it to fish termites from a therma yog and reported her finds to Leakey. “David Graybeard and his tools using was the moment that changed everything,” she said later.

She was also the first scientist to make descriptions of chimpanzee-fri and Morning rituals, of their reproductive cycles, and of how mothers introduce their babies to the troop-expert mothers, Goodall found, calmly let the others of the troop see the baby, whereas the first baby, provocative lead and Mayhem.

In the 1970s, the focus of her life began to change and moved from observing chimpanzees to advocating them. Then her second phase of changing the world began. She is the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, which became a huge non-profit organization with offices in 25 country. In 1986, she organized a conference for field biologists who worked with chimpanzees in places throughout Africa, and that dr. TRWs, the threat to the animals and the forest they trust. She also learned about the problems facing people who live near the habitats of the chimpanzee.

In 1991, she started Roots & Shoots, an organization aimed at teaching young people about preservation. It is active in over 75 rancer. She was constantly touring and talking about preservation and gave about 300 audiences’ performances this year. In 2024, she visited each of the Jane Goodall institution’s offices to talk to the media about conservation work and animal rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nicgcikp8q

Goodall died in California in the middle of a talk trip. She wrote 32 books, included 15 for children. In her last, The book of hopeShe wrote: “I realized that if we couldn’t help people find a way to earn life’s stay without destroying the environment, there was no way we could try to save chimpanzees.”

Goodall talked about the influence of another of the 20th century’s most important numbers, ecologist and preservative Rachel Carson. At the University of Cambridge in the 1960s, she said: “I read Rachel Carsons Quiet spring And was inspired by her courage to fight with pharmaceutical companies, the government and the researchers about the danger of the environment in DDT. “

Carson knew there was a long battle ahead, but you gave up and will continue to inspire, she said. The same goes for Jane Goodall.