Jane Goodall talks chimp
2008-07-16 11:33
Elsabé Brits
Cape Town - The slight figure of 74-year-old Dr Jane Goodall, renowned British primatologist, stands in front of the microphone: "Let's not forget why we're here today.
I greet you with the sound chimpanzees make in the morning."
At first softly and then louder and faster the sounds of a chimpanzee spill over the audience.
With almost spooky realism Goodall cries out. Her mouth is round and her voice shrill.
She speaks chimpanzee.
"If I look back over the almost 50 years (in 2010 it will be 50 years that she has been working with chimpanzees), there is one element that stands out: how much these animals are like us.
"One by one the barriers between ourselves and other animals are being broken down.
"The barriers that we as people erected to try to make us unique, to keep us away and to distinguish us from other animals are being broken down one by one.
'Leading the way'
"And the wonderful thing about it, is that chimpanzees are leading the way. There isn't a definite, clear line that sets us apart from other animals.
"There are differences, but these are not as great and obvious as we would like to believe."
Through the course of her work that began in the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania (then Tanganyika), Goodall stood by her belief that chimpanzees (and other animals) have emotions and unique personalities.
The idea that animals have feelings and emotions is still not accepted everywhere.
"It was a terrible sin to say that," says Goodall.
"I was told that only people had these attributes and that it was a sin to suggest what I had said. Anyone who has ever spent a long time with an animal, must - if he is honest - admit that it's true.
"As a child I had already seen it to be true with my dog Rusty," she said.
'Talking nonsense'
Goodall was told that she did not have the necessary qualifications and that's why she was talking nonsense.
"I went to study, obtained my doctorate and then still retained my standpoint."
She said that people confuse the idea of animals having an inner-world of feelings with the element of intellect.
The most intelligent chimpanzee cannot be compared to a human at this level but that's not what it's about.
It's about animals experiencing most facets of emotion and that they should thus be respected and treated accordingly.
Chimpanzees can experience many emotions including excitement, fear, sadness, joy, jealousy, maliciousness, depression, longing and altruism.
Like many animals they also have their own personalities.
Goodall says it is language and everything that can be achieved by the use of language that has differentiated humans.
She often is criticised because she names the animals that she studies.
"Apparently I should've given them numbers - I would've never remembered the numbers!"
Poor countries exploited
Goodall also believes strongly that a scientist is capable of feeling emotion and still being analytical.
"While I made my observations, I sometimes also cried but that doesn't mean that my science is incorrect."
But it was she and not the critics who saw for the first time in 1964 how chimpanzees used sticks and grasses to fish termites out of their nests - the first observation of the use of tools among chimpanzees.
Goodall says that many rich countries still exploit poor countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Uganda, where a large percentage of chimpanzees occur.
"China just moves in these days and builds a road in exchange for mining resources and that worries me.
"Seventeen years ago I flew over my precious Gombe (National Park) and the trees were just gone."
However, Goodall has placed her hopes on people to make a difference.
"Humans can use their talents to solve problems if they want to. I have hope that we can do it."
'The eyes of a man'
She told the story of a man who saw a chimpanzee called Joe-Joe drowning in a pool of water in a zoo. (Chimpanzees can not swim.)
He jumped over the railing and took Joe-Joe out of the water, even though it was very dangerous.
He pushed him onto the grass and Joe-Joe slid down again. The man rescued Joe-Joe again.
When a journalist asked the man why had had done it, he said, "Because when I looked in his eyes, it was like looking into the eyes of a man. And they pleaded, 'Help me!'"
"I have often seen this in the eyes of baby chimpanzees whose mothers have been shot for meat, in circus animals, in medical laboratories, in baboons that are shot by people, in elephants that must work, in cats and dogs on the street, in farm animals, in street children, in refugee camps, in many places.
"When you see this look in the eyes of a person or an animal, you can't do anything but help."
British primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist, Jane Goodall is renowned for her nearly 50 years of study of chimpanzee social and family interactions in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania. She has also founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a global non-profit organisation for wildlife research, education and conservation. For more information on Jane Goodall click here.
- Die Burger