Ask just about anyone to name a famous living biologist, and the answer is likely to be, “Jane Goodall.” Goodall, who studied chimpanzees in Tanzania for half a century, is a hero to people throughout the world, and especially a role model for young women interested in science, research and adventure.
Goodall was born on April 3, 1934, in London. As a girl, she loved delighted in nature, spending her free time observing the behavior of animals. She developed two specific loves—animals and Africa. “I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels,” she said. Those loves grew stronger as she matured. She completed high school, but did not have enough money to attend college. She worked for years as a secretary and waitress, saving money to afford to go to Africa.
She achieved her dream when she accompanied a friend to Kenya in 1957. There she met Louis Leakey, the famous paleo-anthropologist, and began working for him as a secretary and field assistant. Realizing her interest in animal behavior, Leakey sent Goodall to study the vervet monkey on an island in Lake Victoria.
Leakey believed that studying primates in nature would yield great insight into the evolution of humans. He thought Goodall would be perfect for the work, because her lack of a college education would make her an accurate observer, un-influenced by theory or current dogma. So, in 1960, accompanied by her mother (local authorities would not let a young English woman travel on her own), she traveled to the Gombe Stream National Park in what is now Tanzania to begin observing chimpanzees.
For a long time, Goodall could not get close to the chimpanzees. When she was still hundreds of yards away, they would retreat and disappear. But she kept at it, appearing at the same location and time every day and waiting patiently. Eventually, the chimpanzees came closer and closer, and within a few years, they had accepted her presence among them. She became a neighbor, rather than an intruder.
Read MoreApril is Keep America Beautiful Month
Back in 1971, The Keep America Beautiful organization teamed up with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to create Keep American Beautiful Day. It was expanded in 1982 to a week, and then to the entire month of April in 1984. As spring takes hold of the weather and the landscape awaken with the greening of trees and grasses, the blooming of wildflowers and the melodies of nesting songbirds, we, too, ought to take special notice of our beautiful environment—and do something to, as they say, keep it beautiful.
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