Science Friday - Remembering Primatologist Jane Goodall

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist, conservationist, and humanitarian, died on October 1 at the age of 91. Goodall was born in London in 1934, and her curiosity about the natural world led her to the forests of Gombe, Tanzania, where she made groundbreaking observations of chimpanzee behavior, including tool use. Her research challenged the accepted scientific perceptions of our closest relatives.Host Ira Flatow shares his memories of Dr. Goodall, including an interview from 2002 in which she discussed her life and work.Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. I'm saddened with the news this week that Dr. Jane Goodall has passed away at 91. Now I could recount for you her credentials and awards, but you're going to read a lot of obits about Jane Goodall, so I want to tell you about the Jane Goodall I grew to know and admire over the decades I interviewed her. Jane Goodall had guts. She never took no for an answer. She went into the jungles of the Gumpy Forest in Tanzania with no formal training as a scientist, inventing observation. techniques and methods, others would use later, invent them as she went along. That's how talented and determined she was. When she saw the environment that she had grown to love under attack, she didn't wait for others to lead. She went headlong, like she had into the jungle,

and fought back becoming a tireless advocate for conservation. Accumulating kudos, credits, and awards along the way, even becoming Dame Jane, she knew those accolades would help her creed when she spread her message. Dame Jane embodied the meticulous precision of a scientist and the deep compassion of a humanitarian. She emphasized the importance of hope for survival. Her legacy of discovery, preservation, and empathy continues to shape global conservation efforts and inspire action. I was fortunate to have our paths cross numerous times, the last being her 90th birthday celebration in New York last year. So on a sad day like today, I thought it would be comforting to be reminded of the boundless, positive, welcoming spirit she carried.

You're going to hear it in our conversation from 2002. We talked about her first entry into the world of the chimps, her many discoveries, and her hopes for a better future. Thank you very much for coming in to join us today. Thanks for inviting me. Let's talk a little bit about your background. Gilbert Grovener, Chairman of the National Geographic Society, one of the first. wrote about you in one of your books. She was hardly the image one would project to become an old African hand. Her bush experiences were honed in the genteel English countryside.

Well, it wasn't exactly genteel. I wouldn't have described it like that. But, you know, animals were my passion from even before I could speak, apparently. So I was watching earthworms in my bed when I was one and a half. And I hid for five hours in a hen house when we had the opportunity to go into the country because we lived in the town because I was collecting the eggs and, you know, there was the egg where was the whole big enough for the egg to come out? Nobody told me, so I hid. He wanted to watch it. And I watched it.

And it was my first, you know, wonderful experiment. And then when I was about 10, 11, I found the books about Tarzan of the Apes, fell in love with Tarzan. He's got that wife, Jane, you know, so I was terribly jealous of her. And that was when my dream started. When I grew up, I would go to Africa, live with animals, and write books about them. That's how it all began. And how did you fulfill that dream?

Well, I got the opportunity when a school friend invited me to go and stay on their farm in Kenya. And I was working at the time with documentary film studio in London, which is a great job. Didn't pay very much. So I quit that, went home and worked as a waitress and served people there, breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. until I'd saved up enough money to buy my return fare by boat because it was cheapest in those days. So, you know, I was 23 and I sort of said bye-bye to family, friends and country, and off I went. But we had arranged a job for me in Nairobi, a boring job, a secretarial job, but at least I would be independent.

And that was when I heard about the late Louis Leakey. And somebody said, Jane, if you're interested in animals, you must meet Lewis. So I picked up the telephone, cheeky me, and made it. an appointment to go and see Louis Leakey. He was then curator of the Natural History Museum in Nairobi. And were you around then when we made that famous discovery? No, I was the year before. It was the year before. Which was so lucky.

It was lucky. Yes, because it was absolutely unknown. We just spent all day chipping away in the rock. And then Gillian and I were allowed out on the plains. And all the animals were there, the antelopes, the zebra, the giraffes. And then one evening there was a rhino, which was a little bit scary. And one evening, a young male lion, two years old, totally curious. Never seen anything like me and Julian before.

And he followed us for at least, well, a couple of football pitches. It was like being at home. And so then how did you find your way toward working with the chimps? Well, it was during that old-of-eye time that Lewis realized that I was the sort of person. He said he'd been looking for for about 10 years. So he made this suggestion to me, took him a year to get the money. I mean, who was going to give money to a young girl, a female, who didn't have a degree of any sort, straight out from England? I mean, what a ridiculous idea.

So I was in England waiting, learning what I could about chimpanzees while he searched for money and eventually found a wealthy American businessman. Okay, Lewis, he was, he's enough money for six months. we'll see how she does. And you did pretty well. Well, it was a very, very worrying time because I got to Gombe. Again, I felt I was at home. But the chimpanzees ran away as soon as they saw me. You know, they're very conservative.

They'd not seen a white ape before. And I knew if that six months money ran out before I'd seen something really exciting, you know, I would have let Lewis down. Well, we told you so. This is ridiculous. But fortunately, just. before that time came, I saw the first observations of using and making tools, and that was the saving observation, the breakthrough. Of course, at that time, you know, we were defined as man,

the toolmaker. That was supposed to differentiate us more than anything else from the rest of the animal kingdom. David Grabeard, bless his heart. I saw him crouched over a termite mound. couldn't really see properly. They were still not very relaxed in my presence. I was hiding, but I knew he was using a piece of grass. And a few days later, he and one of the other chimps, I could see them much better, the whole thing, putting in the grass, picking the termites off,

picking a leafy twig and stripping off the leaves, which is the beginning of toolmaking. So that was it. Exciting? It was, I couldn't actually believe it. I had to see it about four times before I, let Louis Leakey know and then I sent a telegram and he sent back his famous comment ha ha now he must redefine man redefined tool or accept chimpanzees as humans well you know I know

you do wonderful chimp calls I'm going to try to get my engineer ready for this because Jane tells me it's pretty loud so tell us what call you're going to be giving well I'm going to do the greeting and it's the kind of sound you'd hear if you went to Gombe and you climbed up onto the ridge in the morning and you listened and if you're lucky you're You hear the chimpanzee who's calling out saying, here I am, it's a wonderful day. Where are you? And, oh, who, who, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Wow.

Each one has his or her own individual voice. You know exactly who's calling. So, like, we can tell on the phone who the chimp is. You can also tell. Yes, correct. You were, I want to pick up on the, you're having to get a PhD, you went back. And they were just aghast at you. Yeah, they were.

Whippersnapper. It's upstart. Yeah, it was even accused of teaching the chimps how to fish for termites, which, I mean, that would have been such a brilliant coup. Besides your initial discovery, what has been most surprising to you? The most surprising and shocking, really, was when in 1970, that's after 10 years of research, we realized that chimpanzees have a dark side, just like we. I thought they were so like us, but rather nicer.

And then to find that they're capable of brutality, that they, may even have a series of events, not unlike primitive warfare, that they can attack members of another social group so severely that those individuals die as a result of their wounds and that infants can be killed. And that was very, very shocking. And why it took 10 years, about 10 years to discover that? Well, because the boundary patrols are right out at the far end of their range, and I suppose we just weren't following them far enough. But also the warlike, we called it the four-year war, that was a rather specific circumstance. And it was when our main study community divided, and when those two groups had sort of completely separated, then the males of the larger group began to systematically annihilate the split-off in the case. It was almost like a civil war.

And it was very, very shocking. Let's go to Sharif in Philadelphia. Hi. How you doing? I wanted to know if you believe there are any undiscovered large ape species. And if you believe that the bonobo chimpanzee is a subspecies of the chimp or a separate species. Okay, well, I'll do the second one first because that's easy. It's definitely another species.

I mean, it's known. It's described as another species. It's a bonobo, not a pygmy chimpanzee. different in many, many ways. What a wild species, that is. I mean, just incredible. Yeah. Rich species.

The things that they do that we never thought. That's right. The chimps do. Yes. Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans genetically are equidistant. As for the other, you're talking about a Yeti or Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Is that what he's talking? Yes, yes, he is.

Is that the message I'm missing here? I think that's the message you're missing. Is that right, Cherie? Pretty much. Well, now, you'll be amazed when I tell you, that I'm sure that they exist. You are. Yeah, I've talked to so many Native Americans who've all described the same sounds, two who've seen them.

I've probably got about 30 books that have come from different parts of the world from all over the place. And there was a little tiny snippet in the newspaper just last week, which says that British scientists have found what they believe to be a Yeti hare, and that the scientists in the Natural History Museum in London couldn't identify it as any known animal. Now, that was just a wee bit in the newspaper, and obviously we have to hear a little bit more about that. Well, this age of DNA, if you find a hair, there might be some cells on it. Well, there will be, and I'm sure that's what they've examined. My little tiny snippet said that don't match up with DNA cells from known animals, so apes. Did you always have this belief that they existed?

Well, I'm a romantic, so I always wanted them to exist. All right, Cherie. Thank you. Thanks for calling. How do you go looking for them? I mean, people have been looking, or has this just been, since we don't really believe they could exist, we really haven't really made a serious search for them. Well, there are people looking. There's very ardent groups in Russia, and they have published a whole lot of stuff about what they've seen.

Of course, the big criticism of all this is where is the body? You know, why isn't there a body? And I can't answer that. And maybe they don't exist. But I want them too. And so I... What needs to be researched out there? I mean, what is missing from the picture?

Well, one of the most fascinating areas for research is cultural differences between different populations across Africa or even different neighboring communities. And, of course, it's still controversial as to whether chimpanzees can have culture. But I define it very simply as behavior that's passed from one generation to the next through obsceny. imitation, imitation, and practice. And tool-using behaviors differ quite markedly across the species range in Africa. Now, we've just begun to skim the surface of these differences. But even as you and I are speaking, chimpanzees, along with their cultures, are being wiped out right across Africa.

So from about 2 million 100 years ago to the very maximum 200,000. hundred thousand today, and that's more likely to be 150,000, mostly in tiny isolated fragments where there's no possibility for long-term survival because the gene pools aren't big enough. And they're dying? Why? They're dying because of habitat destruction as human populations grow. They're caught in wire snares set for other animals, but they catch the chimps and gorillas for that matter. and they either die of gangrene or lose a hand or foot and can't compete very well

reproductively. But the worst threat for chimps today is the commercial bush meat trade, and that is the hunting of animals for sale in the big towns, not subsistence hunting, which has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years. But this has happened because the logging companies have made roads in terms. to the heart of the last great forests of the Congo basin. Hunters go along the trail. They now have transport.

They shoot everything. They load it on the truck. They take it to the towns. Where the elite will pay more for it than chicken or goat. No kidding. Do you see yourself as an effective spokesperson for the environment now? There are so few people. One of the remarks that so often said to me after a lecture,

people come up and they say, you have re-inspired me to do my bit. You have made me feel that my own life is more worthwhile. But do you think that people who might be tougher to reach with that message might be more inclined to invite a Jane Goodall to speak or listen to you as someone who was a quote-unquote a political environmentalist? Well, I do know that when talking to people who perhaps think very differently, the only chance you have of getting them to think in a different way is to touch the heart.

And if you're strident, if you start accusing people, if you point fingers, then you immediately see the eyes glaze over and you know that you're not getting across. And, you know, I have to go around and think that so much of what goes on that, in my view anyway, is a mistake. It's due not to any kind of criminal intent, but simply because people honestly haven't understood. So I feel that that's my job. My job is to help people understand and to think about the future. I mean, just imagine what this world would be like. If we went back to the old tradition of the Native Americans who said every major decision has to be made with the question,

how will this affect our people seven generations on? Even if we could just say two generations on, even one generation on, it would be helpful. Do you miss, though, the forest? I try and keep the forest in me. That's what I have to do to remain sane. But when I do go back to Gombe, you know, it's to be out in the forest, even without a chimpanzee, to be in that timeless world where it's soft and where life is entwined and you actually see the pattern of nature. And I always feel this great spiritual power, which I believe is around.

It must rejuvenate you. It does, absolutely. What do you want to be remembered for? I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who really helped people to have a little humility and realize that we are part of the animal kingdom, not separated from it. the various results from chimpanzee research has done a lot to soften scientific attitude. And then about my work for the environment, let's wait till I'm dead and see what sort of impact I've had. Then I can tell you. And so you're going to continue to travel?

I have to. Well, as long as I can. Because? Because it's making a difference. Because I can see the result of a visit like to mainland China. the minister of the environment said, Dr. Kudol, I would like your programs in our schools. And it's changing the attitude of children to animals.

So in your quiet way, I mean, you're sort of in a background until an IMAX movie or something comes out, but you're still working very hard. I'm working harder now than I ever work. This is much harder work than crawling through the forest after the chimps. That was just bliss, exhausting physically, bliss. This is, you know, every day and you take it, you live it day by day. That's the only way to get through it.

Well, good luck to you. Thank you. Dr. Jane Goodall from a conversation in 2002. Condolences to all those whose life she has touched.