![]() ![]() Leakey hired Jane on the spot to do secretarial work and saw in her the makings of a scientist. ![]() In Nairobi, Kenya, Goodall “boldly asked for an appointment with Louis Leakey, whose interest in great apes grew from his pioneering research into human origins. Louis Leakey (1903-1972), the pioneering paleoanthropologist who mentored a generation of scientists in East Africa, including primate researcher Jane Goodall. Over the months that followed, she gradually won the trust of a single male chimpanzee she named David Graybeard. At first the Gombe chimps fled at the sight of a human intruder, and Goodall could only observe them from a distance through binoculars. In the summer of 1960, Jane Goodall and her mother arrived at Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in what is now Tanzania. When the British colonial authorities refused to allow her to travel alone to the chimpanzee reserve near Lake Tanganyika, she recruited her mother to stay with her. Despite Leakey’s confidence in her abilities, other experienced professionals did not believe a lone young woman from England could survive in the African bush. ![]() Although Jane lacked scientific training, or even a college degree, she was eager to attempt the research herself. A leading authority on the evolution of man, Leakey knew there was a lack of hard data concerning the behavior of chimpanzees - our nearest evolutionary relatives - in the wild. Leakey hired her as an assistant and secretary, and she accompanied him and his wife Mary on an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge. In Kenya, Goodall was introduced to the legendary anthropologist Louis Leakey. Young Jane Goodall loved animals, books, and books about animals. When an opportunity arose to visit a friend’s family in Kenya, she returned to Bournemouth and worked as a waitress in a local hotel, living at home to save money for her trip. Unable to afford a university education, she moved to London after school to work as a secretary for a documentary film company. She did well in school despite an unusual neurological condition, known as prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize faces. A precocious reader in a family of women who encouraged intellectual accomplishment, Jane read everything she could get her hands on about wild animals and Africa. When Mortimer Morris-Goodall went to war, young Jane moved with her mother and younger sister, Judy, to live with her grandmother and aunts in the seaside town of Bournemouth, where they remained when her father and mother divorced following the war. From early childhood, Jane was fascinated by all animals, an interest encouraged by her mother, Vanne. Her father, Mortimer Morris-Goodall, was a well-known race car driver. Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in London. ApGoodall’s father gave her a stuffed toy chimpanzee called Jubilee for her first birthday. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |