Issue date: May 19, 1999
Dr. Jane Goodall captivated an overflow crowd at Woodside Priory in Portola Valley recently with her talk on the chimpanzee life she has observed for 40 years in Tanzania and their bleak future if humans don't take positive action.
Dr. Goodall, primatologist and environmentalist, was the keynote speaker at the Woodside Priory School's community forum April 28.
During the talk she showed slides: the lush Gombe Stream valley, her research site, was followed by a picture of the other side of the hill -- barren, red earth, denuded of trees and plants. Another slide showed the "chimp orphanage" where babies are raised when their mothers have been shot or after they are taken as pets, then discarded.
As a scientist, she warned of the loss of knowledge that will result if chimps cannot be studied in the wild. Since chimps and humans are close relatives genetically, chimpanzee emotions, behavior and social organization are surprisingly "human," she pointed out.
Dr. Goodall's research was the first of its kind when she began in the mid-1960s. Just out of high school, she met famed paleontologist, Louis Leaky, who was impressed with her ideas for studying primates in their own environment over a long period.
Because she was a young woman, Tanzanian authorities were so startled by her request to set up a camp alone in the bush that they gave permission only if she had a companion. Her mother volunteered.
Asked about chimps' aggressive behavior, she said both chimps and humans inherit a aggressive tendencies, but learn to manage these impulses in varying degrees. Asked if she ever met a chimp she didn't like, she noted the current dominant male at the preserve is a bully who pushes other chimps and humans around; the previous dominant male wasn't like that.
The Jane Goodall Institute, which co-sponsored the lecture, was launched in a San Francisco living room in 1977. Today, Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation is an international organization with headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Priory middle school students presented her with a check for $1,000, raised through a dance and bake sales. Students are also selling Goodall Institute chocolate bars to "adopt a chimp."
This report is from Carolyn Dobervich, director of communications at Woodside Priory School.
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