Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe - Hardcover

Jane Goodall Institute

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1556709471 ISBN 13: 9781556709470

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1999

Synopsis

Chronicles the years that Jane Goodall spent at Gombe Stream documenting the behavior of chimpanzees

About this title

Review:

Jane Goodall is the most famous primatologist, possibly the most famous field biologist, of the 20th century. Her chimpanzee research did more to increase human knowledge of the lives of our closest relatives than that of any other scientist. It's in large part due to her example that primatology is the closest thing to a female-dominated science.

But in 1986 Goodall gave up fieldwork for a higher, more pressing calling: rescuing chimpanzees from inhumane conditions in captivity and preserving the species from extinction. Jane Goodall: 40 Years at Gombe is a pictorial tribute to her life, her studies of the chimpanzees, and her unflagging efforts to motivate human beings on their behalf.

"Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference." Goodall began her research by giving the chimpanzees names, by observing them as nonhuman individuals. Her activism is directed toward the human individuals: scientists who use apes in research, Africans who live near wild apes, children in Africa and in the industrialized world who can learn to value other creatures for themselves. Goodall says of this last project that "I think Roots & Shoots is probably the reason I came into the world. Yet I couldn't have done it without all those years with the chimpanzees and an understanding that led to a blurring of the line between 'man' and 'beasts.'" --Mary Ellen Curtin

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

From Jane Goodall's Message I am writing this in Gombe, on the veranda of my house overlooking Lake Tanganyika. The sun sinks a hug red globe, behind the Congo hills in the west. What better place to reflect on the past, relive the memories of my day, dream of the future. This morning Fifi greeted me, as she has for the past few years, soon after my arrival in the forest. Somehow she always seems to know! She wandered toward me, her eighth and most recent infant clinging to her back, then sat and looked directly into my eyes. I gazed back. Fifi is the one chimpanzee who was alive when I first set foot on Gombe's shores in 1960 who is still alive today. There are some memories that are shared by us alone, memories of the early sixties, when Fifi herself was an infant. Presently she got up and carried her daughter away, I heard later, from Hilali Matama, who heads up our Tanzanian team of field staff, that they joined a big group with Fifi's oldest sons, Freud and alpha male Frodo.

I stayed on to absorb the forest's spirit. I thought about the early days when infant Fifi rode into camp on old Flo's back, the older Figan and Faben following. How enchanted Fifi had been when Flo gave birth again, to infant Flint. Fifi and I together had watched and learned from Flo the best qualities of motherhood-techniques that I had practiced when raising my own son, Grub, and that Fifi is still using as she raises her extraordinarily large family.

....I was shocked to learn, during a conference in 1986, how rapidly chimpanzees were disappearing across their range in Africa. Numbering close to two million individuals at the turn of the century, a mere 150,000 (if that) remain, scattered (often in small fragmented groups that will almost certainly become extinct through inbreeding) across twenty-one African nations. Chimpanzees are threatened by habitat destruction, as increasing numbers of people need ever more land. Gombe itself is a tiny 30 square miles of forest utterly surrounded by cultivated field. Chimpanzees are caught in wire snares set up by hunters for antelopes, pigs, and so on. The chimps can break the wire, but lose hand or foot from the agonizingly tightened loop or die of gangrene. There are dealers who pay hunters to shoot mothers and take their infants for the live animal trade.

But the greatest threat to the continued existence of chimpanzees in their last stronghold, the great Congo Basin, is the so-called "bush meat trade." Logging roads enables hunters from the towns to travel into the heart of the last remaining forests. Shooting everything, from chimps and gorillas to small antelopes and birds, they truck the meat to markets in the towns-where many people prefer the flesh of wild animals and will pay more. Subsistence hunting enabled humans to live in harmony with nature for hundreds of years. The new commercial hunting is a pathway to extinction-for the Great Apes and all other wildlife.

...Now, as we move into the next millennium, we look ahead to further years of conservation, education, and caring. We, the Jane Goodall Institute-all our staff, members, and friends-are determined to make a positive impact on our world. Won't you join us?

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1556709471
• ISBN 13: 9781556709470
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128