Renowned primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall took the stage at Mizzou Arena to a standing ovation. “Thank you for that greeting, it makes me feel like I should produce a rock band,” she said. In response, the scientist, advocate and adventurer chirped a (startlingly realistic) chimpanzee-style greeting to the audience. “This is me, this is Jane”.
This was one of my many ways Goodall displayed her remarkable character and bright spirit to the 4,000-plus audience at her lecture yesterday Sept 17. Goodall is considered the most prominent primatologist in the field but took the stage like an old friend — her soft-spoken words, gentle nature and easy jokes held the audience in rapt attention.
The lecture, “Sowing the Seeds of Hope,” was hosted by the Delta Gamma Foundation as part of its Lectureship in Values and Ethics. Senior Chair of the MSA/GPC Speakers Committee Cale Sears was the driving force behind Dr. Goodall’s appearance at Mizzou.
The event was moved from the Missouri Theatre to the Mizzou Arena in anticipation of a large crowd. Tickets for the event sold out but at 5 p.m. the night of, venue staff determined that more seats could be made available. Students, faculty and members of the community attended.
Goodall began her lecture by posing a question. “How is it I’m standing here? What happened to a little girl growing up in England… during World War II? How did I get here?”
Goodall answered the question simply — she had a really wonderful mother. Goodall describes herself as someone “born loving animals” and shared a story from her childhood. “I was one and a half years old when mum apparently came into my room… and found that I had taken a whole lot of earthy earthworms to bed with me. A lot of mothers would have been horrified and thrown them out of the window but she said very quietly, ‘Jane, if you leave them here they’ll die, they need the earth, the garden’, so we took them back outside.”
Goodall also recounted a time when, at four years old, she staked out a chicken coop to understand the mystery behind how hens lay eggs. The curiosity and patience Goodall displayed at a young age carried her into adulthood and inspired her to follow her passion of studying animals.
When she was ten years old, Goodall found the book “Tarzan of the Apes” in a used bookshop. After reading the book she “fell passionately in love with Tarzan,” Goodall told the laughing audience. “And what did Tarzan do? He married the wrong Jane.”
The novel inspired Goodall’s dream to “grow up, go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them.” Everyone around her dismissed this ambition — except for her mother. When Goodall graduated from secretarial school (her parents couldn’t afford university tuition), she procured a job in Nairobi and met British anthropologist Louis Leakey, who hired her as his secretary. Impressed by her extensive knowledge of chimpanzees, he soon asked her to begin a study of wild chimps living in Tanzania, which she accepted. Her dream was coming true.
Goodall’s work in Tanzania reshaped the way humans view animals. She was the first to conclude that many things considered unique to humans were also present in chimp society. Goodall’s first breakthrough was witnessing a chimp strip the leaves from a twig to make a tool (previously, tool-making was considered exclusive to humans). As Goodall continued to study chimps, the distinction between man and ape grew less clear.
After decades of studying the chimps in Gombe (taking a break to earn a PhD from Cambridge), Goodall attended a conference in 1986 concerning human threats to chimps. After learning about the bushmeat industry and mistreatment of apes in circuses and experimental medicine, Goodall “went as a scientist, left as an activist.” Since then, she hasn’t stayed in one place for more than three weeks and spends 300 days a year travelling.
After flying over Gombe, Goodall realized the toll deforestation was taking on her beloved apes’ habitat. The surrounding villages banded together to devote a portion of their land to chimpanzees and create a “forest corridor” for the apes. In 1977, Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute, for which she does most of her travelling.
Goodall spoke of the declining health of the planet but asserted that young people have the power to fix it. She mentions meeting young people without a lot of confidence in the world. “We have compromised your future,” she said. “It’s time we put our hands together… to put things right.” She continued, “I have my greatest hope in the young people”.
Goodall, a vegetarian, emphasized the harmful effects of factory farming to the environment, the consumer and the animal. At her request, the Arena did not serve products containing meat.
Goodall’s faith in young people shows in her organization Roots & Shoots, established in 1991 with the purpose of helping young people identify and solve problems facing the environment. The program is present in 139 countries with over 150,000 groups (most groups have about 30 members). Goodall urged MU to start a chapter of Roots & Shoots.
Goodall closed her lecture with the sentiment that “only when we live with heart and head in harmony can we realize our potential.”
(First and second photo by Olivia Paggiarino, third photo from MU News.)