The apes may have had us surrounded, but we had them far outnumbered-which is, of course, the main rub in their existence. Now, they numbered in the hundreds, assembled for the largest gathering of chimp researchers since an inaugural conference of this kind back in 1986. When Goodall began her research in the 1960s, all of the world’s experts on chimpanzees might have fit around a small coffee table. “What a zoo!” Goodall exclaimed, referring not to the gorillas and chimpanzees, but the mob of hairless, gawky bipeds (outliers, in these respects, among our genetic kin) yipping past one another towards an open bar. The wan, pert, reed-thin woman, pausing wide-eyed in the Regenstein Center’s entryway was the 82-year-old conservationist herself. New research turned less on what makes chimps distinct from humans and more on the essence of chimps themselves. Ever since, great-ape scholarship has been shaped, in part, by a raucous debate over whether more subtle differences between chimps and humans were matters of degree or kind. More than a half-century ago, Goodall’s field observations upended the notion that chimpanzees don’t make or use tools in the wild. ![]() This “fishing” behavior is an example of tool-making and tool use documented by Jane Goodall in the forests of East Africa. The mature females glanced over, adjusted their wands, and continued trolling for treats. As they streamed past, the chimps paid little attention. ![]() They were in Chicago for an international conference called Chimpanzees in Context. On this gray evening in August, hundreds of great-ape scholars squeezed between the glassed-in enclosures of the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Regenstein Center for African Apes. On our right, female chimpanzees poked sticks into a faux termite mound. Straight ahead, a silverback gorilla turned his resplendent back, hair bristling, to avoid our gaze. A label she dislikes.At twilight, the great apes had us surrounded. Her global youth programme, Roots and Shoots has inspired and empowered millions of people to understand and respect nature, leading some to call her ‘the mother Theresa of the environment’. For the last thirty years, she has campaigned gently but relentlessly to protect wild animals and wild places, touring the world and performing on stage in front of huge audiences. ![]() Seeing distressing footage of chimps who were living in captivity, she gave up fieldwork to become an activist, working to liberate chimpanzees that were being used for medical research or sold for meat or as pets, and setting up chimp sanctuaries for animals that were no longer able to live in the wild. However, she did take care to protect her young son. Images of her younger self play wrestling with baby chimps make Jane feel slightly apprehensive now but at the time she didn’t give it a second thought. Her ground breaking observations introduced us to the social and emotional lives of wild chimpanzees and changed our view of what it is to be human. Jane shot to fame when she appeared on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1963 and appeared in a documentary film directed by Orson Welles. Jane Goodall, aged 86, reflects on the years she spent living with the wild chimpanzees in Gombe in eastern Tanzania and tells Jim Al Khalili why she believes the best way to bring about change is to ‘creep into people’s hearts’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |