When Dame Jane Goodall visited Auckland Zoo in 2014, it was her first time seeing a kiwi and it was “splendid”, she said.
“One thing we’ve learnt from New Zealand is the havoc of introduced species,” she explained.
“When you’ve got creatures evolved not to deal with predators and like here, no mammals, you can learn a lot about evolution.”
A lifelong love for apes
But the enthusiastic conservationist and renowned primatologist couldn’t keep her eyes off the zoo’s siamang gibbons – despite having worked closely with apes and monkeys for more than 50 years. Distracted midway through her interview with future Woman’s Day editor Sebastian van der Zwan, Jane appeared to commune with a gibbon hanging in front of her. She said with a childlike grin, “My favourite animal is probably this guy. I just love them.”
Jane passed away at age 91 from natural causes in California last week. She was doing what she loved – on a speaking tour to raise awareness about the plight of our planet. On the road 300 days every year, she tirelessly travelled the globe, sharing her insights.
Joy in the rainforest
“The best days of my life were out in the rainforest learning about chimpanzees, other creatures and the connection of all living things,” she revealed at Climate Week in New York last month.
In one of her final interviews, the life-long vegetarian, who went vegan in 2021, shared the compelling message that while we’re the most “intellectual animals” to ever walk the planet, “we’re not intelligent because intelligent creatures don’t destroy their only home”.
Early life and ambitions
Jane Goodall, born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall in London in 1934, joined her first expedition to Gombe, Tanzania, in 1960 to study the behaviour of wild chimpanzees, despite having no formal scientific training.
Encouraged by her mother, she began her formal studies in 1962, going on to earn a doctorate in ethology, the study of animal behaviour, from the UK’s University of Cambridge in 1965. During this period, she married a Dutch nobleman, wildlife photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick, becoming known as Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall. The couple had a son, also named Hugo, but divorced in 1974.
A partnership in life and conservation
The following year, she married Derek Bryceson, a member of Tanzania’s parliament and the director of the country’s national parks. He died of cancer in 1980. Jane’s groundbreaking discoveries – which showed chimps form strong family bonds, could construct tools and be aggressively territorial – came from her passion, curiosity and quiet ability to observe.
Yet her approach, associating so closely with the animals she studied, naming them and even referring to them as “my friends”, made her unpopular with the male-dominated scientific establishment. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, and supports youth projects aimed at benefiting animals and the environment.
Despite changing our understanding of the natural world, she continued to face cynicism and sexism, but a determined Jane carried on her mission. She recalls her true transition from scientist
to conservationist came in 1986, when she was part of a conference that brought together other field scientists who were studying chimpanzee behaviour.
From scientist to advocate
“We had a session on conservation and it was a shock to see across Africa that forests were being cut down and chimpanzee numbers were dropping,” she explained.
“I went to the conference as a scientist and I left as an advocate. I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to try something.”
