Jane Goodall

Who would give up the comforts of a life in London to live in the middle of a jungle, with wild animals in a practically uncivilized country? Why would anyone wish to move miles away from their friends and family to venture out into the wild to study animals? Well, some people like to think of her as Jane Goodall, the English ethologist. I like to think of her as Jane Goodall, the “hero.”

Jane Goodall was born on April 3, 1934 in London, England. Her fascination with animal behavior began in early childhood when she received a toy chimpanzee named Jubilee (after a famous chimp in the London Zoo) from her father. She attended Uplands Private School and received her school certificate in 1950 and then received a higher certificate in 1952. At age 18, Jane left school and found employment as a secretary at Oxford University.

Jane Goodall had dreamed of traveling to Africa ever since she was a child. At age 23, when a childhood friend who lived in Kenya invited Jane to visit her, Jane eagerly accepted her offer. While in Kenya, Jane Goodall met Louis Leakey, an anthropologist and the curator of the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi. Louis Leakey gave her a job and encouraged her to study a nearby group of wild chimpanzees. Many experts objected to Louis Leakey’s choice of Jane Goodall because she lacked a formal scientific education and even a general college degree.

On July 16, 1960, Jane, accompanied by her mother and an African cook made a boat trip to Gombe, Africa to study chimpanzees. For 30 years she studied the chimpanzee. Jane Goodall struggled through many emotional and some physical challenges. Jane and her sister were born with the neurological disease known as prosopagnosia, a memory impairment disease that makes recognizing people’s faces difficult, however she was always able to tell the chimpanzees apart. She also went through many emotional challenges including loss, failure, and guilt during her divorce from her first husband and suffered much pain caused by her second husband’s suffering and death from cancer. These problems strengthened Jane’s belief in Spiritual Power. Jane also lacked self-confidence partially because she did not have a formal education, which is why she went to college and received a Ph. D. from Cambridge University after her studies in Gombe. Through it all, Jane Goodall was a survivor.

I found Jane Goodall to be my hero not just because of my love for animals, but also because there are countless people who dream of seemingly unattainable goals. Jane Goodall dreamed of studying animal behavior in her early childhood. As she grew older, she decided that she wanted to travel to Africa to study exotic animals in their wild habitats. Very few people actually put an effort to make their dreams come true no matter how hard that goal may be to reach. In my eyes, Jane Goodall is a true hero because she was determined to accomplish her goals through thick and thin, against all odds.