Jane Goodall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jane Goodall
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Goodall in Tanzania in 2018
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Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall
3 April 1934 London, England
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| Education | Newnham College, Cambridge (BA) Darwin College, Cambridge (MA, PhD) |
| Known for | Study of chimpanzees, conservation, animal welfare |
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| Children | 1 |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Ethology |
| Thesis | Behaviour of free-living chimpanzees (1966) |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert Hinde |
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Dame Jane Morris Goodall (born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934) is a famous English zoologist, primatologist, and anthropologist. She is known as the world's top expert on chimpanzees. For over 60 years, she has studied how wild chimpanzees live together and interact.
Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960. Her goal was to observe the chimpanzees there. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and the Roots & Shoots program. She has worked a lot to protect animals and their homes. In 2002, she was named a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
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Early Life and Passion for Animals
Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in April 1934 in Hampstead, London. Her father was Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall, and her mother was Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, a novelist.
When Jane was a child, her father gave her a stuffed toy chimpanzee named Jubilee. Jane says this toy started her early love for animals. She still has Jubilee on her dresser in London today.
Starting Research in Africa
Jane Goodall always loved animals and dreamed of going to Africa. In 1957, she traveled to Kenya. There, she met Louis Leakey, a famous archaeologist. Leakey was looking for someone to study chimpanzees. He believed studying apes could help understand early humans.
In 1958, Leakey sent Goodall to London to learn about primates. On 14 July 1960, Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She was one of the first "Trimates," a group of women who studied great apes. Her mother went with her to ensure their safety. Goodall says her mother encouraged her to work in primatology, which was mostly a male field back then.
Leakey helped Goodall get into the University of Cambridge in 1962. She was one of the few people allowed to study for a PhD without a bachelor's degree first. She earned her PhD in 1966. Her research focused on the behavior of wild chimpanzees at Gombe.
Discoveries at Gombe Stream National Park
Goodall began studying chimpanzee social and family life in 1960. She found that chimpanzees have personalities and can think and feel emotions like joy and sadness. She saw them hug, kiss, pat each other, and even tickle. These actions showed her the strong bonds between chimpanzee family members.
Goodall's research changed two big beliefs about animals:
- That only humans could make and use tools.
- That chimpanzees only ate plants.
She watched a chimpanzee use a grass stalk to "fish" for termites. The chimpanzee would also strip leaves off twigs to make them better tools. This was a basic form of tool-making. Her findings made scientists rethink what it meant to be "human."
Goodall also saw a more aggressive side of chimpanzees. She observed them hunting and eating smaller monkeys. They would work together to catch their prey. This was a major discovery that changed ideas about what chimpanzees eat. She also saw female chimpanzees kill the young of other females to stay dominant. She even saw them eat the young.
Goodall described a four-year conflict between chimpanzee groups, called the Gombe Chimpanzee War. These findings showed that chimpanzees, like humans, have a "darker side."
Naming the Chimpanzees
Goodall did something different from other researchers. Instead of giving numbers to the animals she studied, she gave them names. Many scientists at the time thought this would make her too emotional and less objective.
But Goodall believed that chimpanzees had personalities. She used words like "childhood," "excitement," and "mood" to describe them. This was unusual in science back then. Her approach helped her form a close bond with the chimpanzees. For 22 months, she was even accepted as the lowest-ranking member of a chimpanzee group.
Some of the chimpanzees she named include:
- David Greybeard: The first male chimpanzee to trust Goodall.
- Goliath: A friend of David Greybeard and an early leader.
- Mike: A clever chimpanzee who became a leader.
- Flo: A motherly, high-ranking female with several children.
- Frodo: Flo's aggressive son who sometimes attacked Jane.
Jane Goodall Institute
In 1977, Goodall started the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). This institute supports her research at Gombe and works to protect chimpanzees and their homes. JGI has offices worldwide and is known for its conservation programs in Africa.
Roots & Shoots Program
JGI's global youth program, Roots & Shoots, started in 1991. It began when 16 teenagers met with Goodall in Tanzania. They wanted to talk about problems they saw in their communities and the environment. Today, Roots & Shoots has over 10,000 groups in more than 100 countries.
Chimpanzee Rehabilitation and Reforestation
In 1992, Goodall founded the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in Congo. This center cares for chimpanzees who have lost their parents, often due to illegal hunting. It houses over a hundred chimps on three islands.
In 1994, Goodall started the TACARE project (Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education). This project helps protect chimpanzee habitats from trees being cut down. It replants trees and teaches local communities about sustainable farming. TACARE also helps young girls get an education.
Goodall now spends almost all her time advocating for chimpanzees and the environment. She travels nearly 300 days a year to spread her message.
Activism for Animals and the Environment
A conference in 1986 made Goodall focus more on protecting animals and their habitats. She became a strong voice for animal welfare.
Goodall is a vegetarian and later became a vegan. She believes this diet is good for ethics, the environment, and health. She says that farm animals are intelligent and deserve respect. She also points out that many people who say they love animals still eat meat from animals that were not treated kindly. In 2021, she even wrote a cookbook called Eat Meat Less.
Goodall is a passionate environmental advocate. She talks about how climate change affects endangered species like chimpanzees. She has worked with NASA to use satellite images to help stop deforestation in Africa.
To make sure animals are treated well during scientific studies, Goodall helped create "Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" in 2000. She has also called for the European Union to stop using animals for medical research.
In 2015, Goodall supported classifying all chimpanzees, including those in captivity, as endangered. This helped protect them. She also criticizes fox hunting and other practices that harm animals. In 2020, she supported making "ecocide" (mass damage to nature) an international crime. She also promised to plant 5 million trees as part of a global effort.
Beliefs and Personal Life
Goodall was raised in a Christian family. She believes in a great spiritual power, especially when she is in nature. She feels it is something bigger and stronger than herself. She sees no conflict between her belief in God and the idea of evolution.
Goodall has been married twice. She had one son, Hugo Eric Louis. Her second husband, Derek Bryceson, was the director of Tanzania's national parks. His position helped protect Goodall's research at Gombe. Goodall has said that dogs are her favorite animal. She also has prosopagnosia, which means she sometimes has trouble recognizing faces.
Awards and Recognition
Jane Goodall has received many awards for her work. In 2004, she was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 2002, she became a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
Other honors include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the French Legion of Honour, and Japan's Kyoto Prize. In 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2021, she received the Templeton Prize. In 2025, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Works
Books
- 1969 My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees
- 1971 In the Shadow of Man
- 1986 The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior
- 1990 Through a Window: 30 years observing the Gombe chimpanzees
- 1999 Reason For Hope; A Spiritual Journey
- 2005 Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating
- 2009 Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink
- 2013 Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants
- 2021 The Book of Hope
Children's books
- 1972 Grub: The Bush Baby
- 1988 My Life with the Chimpanzees
- 1989 The Chimpanzee Family Book
- 1994 With Love
- 1999 Dr. White
- 2000 The Eagle & the Wren
- 2001: Chimpanzees I Love: Saving Their World and Ours
- 2004 Rickie and Henri: A True Story
Films
Goodall has been the subject of many films, including:
- 1965 Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees
- 1984: Among the Wild Chimpanzees
- 1990 The Life and Legend of Jane Goodall
- 2002 Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees (IMAX format)
- 2012 Chimpanzee (Disneynature)
- 2017 Jane (National Geographic)
- 2020 Jane Goodall: The Hope (National Geographic)
- 2023 Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope (IMAX format)
See also
In Spanish: Jane Goodall para niños
- Dian Fossey, another "trimate" who studied gorillas
- Birutė Galdikas, another "trimate" who studied orangutans
- Nonhuman Rights Project
- Washoe
