![]() ![]() Soon many of the chimps began spending more time away from the main group and their former family began to regard them as a rival clan. He grew weaker and died several weeks later, apparently of a broken heart. When Flo, the dominant female of the group, died of old age her youngest son Flint took to his nest and refused to eat. Fights broke out among the chimps as they scrambled for the food, until Jane was forced to devise a series of mechanical feeders to allow one chimp at a time to help themselves. Jane’s growing team of researchers saw it first hand when the chimps led by David Greybeard began invading their camp to steal bananas. Real life fairy tale: How a book about inspiring women became a smash hit I wanted to move among them without fear, like Tarzan.” “I wanted to come as close to talking to animals as I could – to be like Dr Dolittle. Jane says: “When I arrived in Gombe I had no idea what I was going to do, except that I was going to try to get the chimpanzees used to me. So he sent Jane to study chimpanzees in Tanzania, Dian Fossey to live among mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and Birute Galdikas to study orangutans in Borneo. He also believed women would be able to get closer to the apes and study them better. Instead she got a job as a waitress and began saving her wages and her tips to fund an African adventure.Īrriving in Kenya in 1957, she began working as a secretary for the palaeontologist Louis Leakey, who believed he could learn more about early humans by studying the great apes. Jane grew up in Bournemouth, a bright girl with a passion for books, but was too poor to go to university. I remember when I had to leave him, how awful and betraying I felt, but it was better for him.” ![]() Jane admits: “He’s never loved chimpanzees. Now 50, he is back living in Tanzania where he is a master boat builder. Grub returned to England aged six to attend school and live with his grandmother. Sorrow as 'Europe's oldest chimpanzee' dies at safari park at the estimated age of 62 “In the morning I would do analysis of data, then spend an hour or two with the students, looking at the chimps, then every afternoon was his totally. So Grub sat in a cage, but it was painted blue and had mobiles hanging down. I wasn’t going to risk my little precious son. ![]() They have been known to take infant humans. Jane says: “It was dangerous for him at Gombe. ![]() Jane so loved life among the chimps that when she married National Geographic photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick and they had a son called Grub, the boy spent his formative years in a cage, staring out from the bars at the wild creatures of Gombe Stream National Park in northwest Tanzania. It has revolutionised our understanding of chimps and of human evolution, and is the subject of a National Geographic film that premieres on TV tonight. It is now 60 years since Jane began her remarkable research, the longest continuous study of any animal. I had a feeling nothing was going to hurt me because I was meant to be here.” “Sometimes I was frightened of things like leopards, but it was the life I’d dreamed of and nothing could deter me. “There were no people out in the field whose research I could read about, except one man who painted himself with baboon poo and sat in hides, hoping chimpanzees would appear. Jane, now 83, admits: “I didn’t know chimpanzees can rip your face off. Her childhood dreams of friendly apes were quickly dispelled as she discovered the calculating, warlike nature of the apes that was disturbingly human. She was so desperate to live with the wild animals of Africa that she moved to Kenya and was rewarded with the chance to study chimpanzees in the remote mountains of Tanzania.ĭespite instructions to get as close as possible, Jane never stopped to consider the potential danger. As a girl Jane Goodall read the adventures of Tarzan of the Apes and Dr Dolittle as she hid in the highest branches of the trees in her garden and dreamt of following in their footsteps. ![]()
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