RIP: Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall, aged 91

[thewayne]

The Jane Goodall Institute confirmed her death earlier today of natural causes, she was on a speaking tour in California.

What an amazing life and career! She never attended university, instead she completed secretarial school and did odd jobs in London until she visited a friend's family farm in Kenya in 1956. While there, she met archeologist Louis Leakey, who hired her as an assistant and secretary. He had been interested in sending a researcher to study wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and assigned Jane the task in 1960.

Three months into her observations, she saw one "stick a long grass stem into a termite mound, withdraw it, and eat what he’d pulled out. 

“It was so obvious that he was actually using a grass stem as a tool,” Goodall wrote. 

When she cabled Leakey about the discovery, he famously wrote back: “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man,’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Because of this and other significant findings, she was admitted into the doctoral program at Cambridge in 1961 despite not having an undergraduate degree.

Amongst her honors were "the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a dame of the British empire."

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jane-goodall-dead-obituary-1235439125/

Comments

[disneydream06]

Very sad news. :(
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

91 is a very good run, and to still be in good enough shape to still be traveling and having speaking engagements!

[disneydream06]

Died doing something she loved. :)

[pondhopper]

What a fantastic person she was. Her joy cuddling chimps always touched my heart. And as they say, she died with her boots on.

[thewayne]

She certainly did die with her boots on, an excellent way to go and for a fantastic cause.

[silveradept]

We owe a lot to her, for the research she did, but also for being someone to look up to.

(And also having an excellent sense of humor, with regard to the Far Side comic about her.)

[thewayne]

I did not remember the Farside cartoon, I'm really glad I looked it up.  An excellent laugh!  Apparently the Goodall Institute sold it on a t-shirt.

[silveradept]

They did, but the first reaction had been an angry letter from the director of the Institute objecting to having Dr. Goodall referred to as a tramp. But she was of better humor about it, and eventually, yes, they licensed it and sold it on T-shirts. And then wrote an introduction to one of the Far Side collections about it.