by Donna Quesada: Every once in a while, a human being is born, that is so exceptional…

Awaken: When we first met briefly, in 2000, I shared with you that your book Reason for Hope was my source of strength and inspiration while teaching an ethics class that included a section on animal welfare…I want to thank you again for leading the way toward a more evolved world view that protects animals and their interests. What began your journey, as a researcher and subsequent advocate for the well-being and protection of animals?

Jane Goodall: I have loved animals ever since I was born, and I had a very supportive mother, who encouraged my dreams… when I was 11, I decided I would grow up, go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them.

We had no money, we couldn’t afford university, but my mother used to say, “if you really want something, and you work hard, and if you never give up, you will find a way.”

So I was invited to Kenya by a school friend… I had heard about the late Louis leakey, went to see him, he gave me a job, and that led to him offering me this incredible opportunity to go and live… Not just with any animal, but the one more like us than anything else… that was in 1960.

Awaken: You are, of course, speaking of chimpanzees. Can you talk about the similarities between us?

Jane G: DNA… we differ by just over 1%… The structure of the blood, the immune system, the brain is almost the same… and the social behavior… kissing, embracing, holding hands, patting one another on the back.

Obviously, intellectual abilities, which we used to think unique to us… long-term, affectionate bonds between family members, through a life that can be anything beyond 60 years…. And they show altruism, love, compassion.

They also have a dark side to their nature… They are capable of violence and even a kind of primitive war.

Awaken: In my own classes, we were challenging the presumed line of demarcation between humans and other species… which I always felt to be not only archaic, but invalid… can you speak to this point?

Jane G: We’ve been so arrogant. There’s no sharp line between us and the rest of the animal kingdom. It’s a blurry line and it’s getting more blurry all the time. And if we have a new respect for these chimpanzee beings, who are so like us, then we should also have great respect for the other amazing animals with whom we share the planet.

The chimps teach us that we are not the only beings with a personality, mind, and above all, feelings. Those feelings are shared by all animals in all kinds of different groups.

Awaken: As I remember from your earlier works, in particular, My Life with the Chimpanzees, you had already been in Africa for some time before meeting your mentor, Louis Leakey. Would you tell us about this time, and what led to your first meeting with him?

Jane G: I spent three wonderful weeks on a farm in a part of Kenya called the Kinankop, or White Highlands. Then I had to move to Nairobi to start my temporary job. I’ve always felt it is an unforgivable thing to dump yourself on friends and then just stay on and on, sponging on their hospitality. So when I was still in England, we had arranged for my job with a big company that had a branch in Kenya. It was very boring, but I could earn my own money and be independent while I tried to find a way to work with animals.

After two months, I met the man who made all my dreams come true. “If you are interested in animals,” someone told me, “you must meet Louis Leakey.” Leakey was an anthropologist and paleontologist who was interested in animals and early man. So I made an appointment and went to see him in his big, untidy office, strewn with papers, fossil bones, teeth, stone tools, and all kinds of other things—including a big cage in which lived a minute mouse with her six babies.

Louis offered me a job immediately—his secretary had just given her notice. What amazing luck! I think he would have found work for me anyway, because he was impressed by how much I knew about African animals.

Awaken: Did you know right away that you loved it and had found your home, so to speak?

Jane G: I had never been so happy.

As we sat around our campfire that evening, eating a scratch meal from tins, I heard the distant, grunting roar of a lion. And later, as I lay on my little cot, I heard a strange, high-pitched sound that I later learned was the “giggling” of hyenas squabbling over some prey. There I was, far, far from any human dwellings, out in the wilds of Africa, with animals all around me in the night. Wild, free animals. That was what I had dreamed of all my life.

Awaken: You still had to convince him that you could handle working with wild chimps, though, right?

Jane G: Because I had no training, no degree, no experience, I had not imagined that I could be chosen for such a study. But of course, I desperately wanted to try.

One day I told Louis so. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me that,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Why did you think I talked about those chimpanzees to you?” He told me that it didn’t matter about my lack of experience or my lack of a degree. He wanted to send someone who had a mind “uncluttered by theories,” someone who would watch carefully and record accurately. He preferred someone who truly wanted to live among the apes and learn about their behavior to someone who simply wanted an academic degree. Above all, he said, he needed someone who had endless patience. Obviously, I was that person!

Awaken: This was your childhood dream coming to life!

Jane G: My childhood dream was as strong as ever: I knew that somehow I must find a way to watch free, wild animals living their own, undisturbed lives. I wanted to learn things that no one else knew, to uncover secrets through patient observation. I wanted to come as close to talking to animals as I could, to be like Doctor Doolittle. I wanted to move among them without fear, like Tarzan.

Awaken: Yet, he didn’t sugarcoat what he knew this venture would entail…

Jane G: Louis had talked about some chimpanzees living on the shores of a far-off lake in Tanganyika. They were much stronger than men, he said. It might be dangerous to study them. It would certainly be difficult. But he was anxious to find out about their lives. Perhaps, he thought, knowing how they lived would help him to understand more about the way our own Stone Age ancestors lived.

This was what I had been so long waiting for, the kind of thing I had come to Africa hoping to do. Louis warned me that it would be a long and difficult task. He told me that if I succeeded, I would have to go to a university and get a degree. And he told me that before I could begin, he would have to try to find the money I would need.

We decided it would be best if I went back to England to learn all I could about chimpanzees while he tried to raise the money. So, Mum and I went back together on a boat…

Awaken: How much time did you spend in England, before going back to Africa?

Jane G: It was a whole year from the time when I left Africa, to the time when I actually arrived among the chimpanzees. Sometimes, as month followed month, I felt sure I would never get there. Surely, I told myself, it’s all too good to be true.

Awaken: What did you do during that year in England, and did it strengthen or weaken your desire to return to Africa?

Jane G: Once I got back to England I got a job at the London Zoo. I didn’t work directly with the animals, but I helped in the television film library there. At the same time I spent hours watching the chimpanzees.

There was a beautiful male, called Dick, and two females. But Dick had been shut up in a small cage for so long that he was almost mad. He would sit in a corner and seemed to be counting his fingers while his mouth opened and shut, opened and shut. I made a vow to myself that one day I would try to help chimps in zoos to have a better life.

I read everything I could about chimps, but almost all of it was about chimps in labs or in people’s homes. Only one man had tried to watch them in the wild. He had done this for only two and a half months and had not learned much. But the more I read, the more I realized how intelligent chimpanzees really are. Everyone agreed that they are more like human beings than any other creature alive today. How lucky I was, I thought, to be going to study them for months and months in their own forest home.

Awaken: How did it come to pass that you finally received the green light to go to the Gombe forest?

 Jane G: At last, Louis wrote to say that he had managed to get enough money for me to begin my study. He had also managed to get the British government official in Tanganyika (which is now Tanzania, after its merger with Zanzibar) to agree that I could work in the Gombe Stream Game Reserve.

In 1960, Tanganyika was still under British colonial rule, and Louis said it had been very difficult to get this permission. In those days it was not thought at all safe for a young, single girl to go into the wilds of Africa and study animals. In fact, Louis was told that I would not be allowed to go by myself. I had to choose a companion. Well, I chose Mum. She was thrilled to come. She had loved Africa and was longing to go back. She also wanted to help me get started in my new venture. She would not be able to stay much longer than three or four months, but we hoped that the authorities would get used to me during this time and let me stay on alone.

July 16, 1960, was a day I shall remember all my life. It was when I first set foot on the shingle and sand beach of Chimpanzee Land—that is, Gombe National Park. I was twenty-six years old.

Awaken: Through your observations, you changed the way we as a people viewed animals and by extension, the way we viewed our place within the natural world. To put it bluntly, we were now obliged to question our assumption of superiority and what this assumption is based on. Through your countless hours and years of watching chimps in their natural habitat, you have amassed so many stories that have opened our minds and hearts… Would you share one of them with us?

Jane G: It was David Greybeard who provided me with my most exciting observation. One morning, near the Peak, I came upon him squatting on a termite mound. As I watched, he picked a blade of grass, poked it into a tunnel in the mound, and then withdrew it. The grass was covered with termites all clinging on with their jaws.

He picked them off with his lips and scrunched them up. Then he fished for more. When his piece of grass got bent, he dropped it, picked up a little twig, stripped the leaves off it, and used that. I was really thrilled. David had used objects as tools!

He had also changed a twig into something more suitable for fishing termites. He had actually made a tool. Before this observation, scientists had thought that only humans could make tools. Later I would learn that chimpanzees use more objects as tools than any creature, except for us. This finding excited Louis Leakey more than any other.

Awaken: And who exactly was David Greybeard?

Jane G: For months, the chimps had been running off when they saw me—now one had actually visited my camp! Perhaps he would come again. The next day I waited, in case he did. What a luxury to lie in until 7:00 A.M. As the hours went by, I began to fear that the chimp wouldn’t come. But finally, at about four in the afternoon, I heard a rustling in the undergrowth opposite my tent, and a black shape appeared on the other side of the clearing. I recognized him at once. It was the handsome male with the dense white beard. I had already named him David Greybeard. Quite calmly he climbed into the palm and feasted on its nuts. And then he helped himself to the bananas I had set out for him. There were ripe palm nuts on that tree for another five days, and David Greybeard visited three more times and got lots of bananas.

A month later, when another palm tree in camp bore ripe fruit, David again visited us. And on one of those occasions he actually took a banana from my hand. I could hardly believe it. From that time on, things got easier for me.

Sometimes when I met David Greybeard out in the forest, he would come up to see if I had a banana hidden in my pocket. The other chimps stared with amazement. Obviously I wasn’t as dangerous as they had thought. Gradually they allowed me to get closer and closer.

Awaken: And you could recognize each one of them after a while, is that right?

Jane G: Once you have been close to chimps for a while, they are as easy to tell apart as your classmates. Their faces look different, and they have different characters. David Greybeard, for example, was a calm chimp who liked to keep out of trouble. But he was also very determined to get his own way. If he arrived in camp and couldn’t find any bananas, he would walk into my tent and search. Afterward, all was chaos. It looked as though some burglar had raided the place!

Goliath had a much more excitable, impetuous temperament. William, with his long-shaped face, was shy and timid. Old Flo was easy to identify. She had a bulbous nose and ragged ears. She came to camp with her infant daughter, whom I named Fifi, and her juvenile son, Figan. Sometimes adolescent Faben came, too.

It was from Flo that I first learned that in the wild, female chimps have only one baby every five or six years. The older offspring, even after they have become independent, still spend a lot of time with their mothers, and all the different family members help one another.

Awaken: I remember some of your writings about Flo… her story is very touching.

Jane G: I really loved old Flo. And because she was one of the first to come to camp, and came so often, I learned a great deal about chimpanzee behavior from her and her family. In 1964, when Flint was born, Flo was the top ranking female. Of course, the adult males were dominant over her, but she could boss all the other females and even many of the adolescent males. She would always charge fearlessly to Flint’s defense if he needed her help. Moreover, the rest of her family—especially Fifi, but also Figan and even adult Faben—helped to protect little Flint.

He became very self-assured. He would threaten chimps older and stronger than he was, because he knew that if they dared to retaliate, his mother, his sister, or one of his brothers would rush to help him. By the time he was four years old, Flint could best be described as a “spoiled brat.”

Then Flo began to wean him. When he wanted to suckle, she pushed him away. When he jumped on her back during travel, she shrugged him off. Flint, like many youngsters, become very upset. He threw violent tantrums, hurling himself about and screaming until he almost choked. He even hit and bit his mother. Indeed, he was so violent that Flo had not managed to wean him properly by the time her next baby was born.

Most youngsters begin to make their own night nests when their baby brothers or sisters are born. But Flint insisted on pushing in with Flo and his new sister, Flame. When Flo tried to stop him, he cried until she gave in. And he insisted on riding her back, even though the new baby was clinging on below. Because part of Flo’s attention now went to the new baby, Flint became upset and behaved like a jealous human child. He even tried to push in and suckle along with Flame.

When Flo stopped him—she did not have enough milk for two youngsters—he became very depressed. When Flo groomed the baby, Flint often pulled her hand away, wanting her to groom him instead. But he was never mean to his infant sister. Indeed, he often played with her and carried her around. Little Flame disappeared when she was six months old. It happened when Flo got really sick. We found her lying on the ground, too weak to climb. We never found out what happened to Flame—probably she died of Flo’s illness. Flo, to our joy, recovered. And Flint, now that he had his mother’s undivided attention, quickly regained his former high spirits. But he went on sleeping with Flo, riding her back, and constantly pestering her for grooming.

Most eight-year-old males begin to spend time away from their mothers, traveling with the big males, learning the sorts of things they need to know when they are grown up. But Flint was still pathetically dependent on Flo. By this time she was looking very ancient—she must have been close to fifty years old. Her teeth were worn to the gum, her once black hair was brown and sparse, and she was shrunken and frail-looking like a little old lady.

She simply collapsed when Flint tried to ride on her back, so he had to walk. But he still slept with her at night. They were mostly on their own together because Flo was too weak to keep up with the other chimps. Her old age would have been very lonely but for Flint. Flo died in 1972. It was a very sad day for me.

I had known her for so long, and she had taught me so much. She died crossing the clear, fast flowing Kakombe Stream. She looked so peaceful—it was as if her heart had suddenly just stopped beating. I looked down at my old friend, and I knew Gombe would never be quite the same without her. For Flint, Flo’s death was a blow from which he never recovered. It was as though, without his mother, he no longer had the will to live. Hunched and miserable, he sat on the bank of the stream near his mother’s body.

From time to time he approached her, searching, it seemed, for a sign of life. He stared at her, then pulled at her hand as though begging her to groom him, to comfort him, as she had done throughout his life. But Flo’s body lay motionless—cold and dead. Finally Flint moved away. His depression worsened. He ate almost nothing, he stayed mostly alone, and in this state of grief he fell sick. This often happens when we are very miserable, because then the body’s defenses against disease are weakened. We tried to help Flint in his sickness and misery. We took him food and stayed with him so that he would not feel utterly alone. But nothing did any good, and about three weeks after Flo died, Flint died, too. It seems that because Flo had been too old to force the spoiled Flint to become independent, he simply couldn’t face life without her.

Awaken: My hope is that these stories will inspire many people to look at animals with a renewed wonder, curiosity and respect. Even though most of us will never have the opportunity you had, during those 55 years in the Gombe National Park in Africa, you have always said that everyday life also provides so many opportunities to watch animals…

Jane G: You can go on nature walks, as I used to. If you live in a city, perhaps you can go to a park or garden where you can watch some kind of animal. Even in inner-city areas you will find sparrows and pigeons… It is very exciting to watch a pair of birds as they go about making a nest. Don’t get too close, though, or they will leave the site, especially during the building and the brooding. But watching and making notes on the whole of the rearing will give you a real feeling of accomplishment.

Once I was really lucky. A robin—the little British bird with a red breast, not the big American robin—came to my windowsill one winter while I was sick in bed. I put crumbs out every day. We fixed up a bird table, a board sticking out from the sill. That robin got so tame he would come and take crumbs from my bed, because I left the window open, even when it was very cold. In the spring (long after I was well again), he brought his mate, and they made a nest in my bedroom—in the bookcase right near my Doctor Dolittle books! That was truly fabulous.

Awaken: Household pets can be equally fascinating!

Jane G: Of course, you don’t have to become an ethologist to study or work with animals. Do you have a dog? Suppose he wants to go outside. How does he ask? Does he bark or whine at the door while looking at you? That’s easy to understand. But dogs can ask in other ways. Perhaps he or she comes up to you and lays his head on your knee. Or he looks at you, gives a tiny whine, and wags his tail. Or he starts to pant, getting louder and louder. Or he becomes restless and walks about a lot.

If he gives up in despair because none of the dumb humans seem to understand or care, he may lie down. But then, when you do get up, he will probably become very excited and start bouncing about. I know a black poodle who will fetch his mistress’s outdoor shoes and bring them to her, one by one, when he wants to go out. A lot of dogs will bring you their leashes.

Konrad Lorenz describes another method. His dog needed to go out, very urgently, in the middle of the night. She couldn’t wake Lorenz by whining or scratching the door—her usual way of asking. So she leapt up onto his bed (which she was strictly not allowed to do) and actually dug him out of the blankets and rolled him onto the floor! If you don’t have a dog, probably one of your friends does. You can watch the dog together. See how long a list you can make of the different ways it “talks” to its human companions and to other dogs. You can do just the same with cats.

Awaken: There are so many ways to make a “study” out of these everyday exchanges!

Jane G: Perhaps, though, you don’t want to study animals or work with them. But still you like animals. You would like to know more about them or to help them. Or you love wild places or city parks and would like to make sure they stay that way and do not become polluted or get dug up for roads, houses, or shops… It is very important to save places where wild, free animals live.

Animals have just as much right to go on living their lives as we do. Also, if we destroy too much of the natural world, we shall be depriving those who live after us of much beauty. Moreover, it may actually be disastrous for us to destroy some kinds of living things.

We know that many important drugs used to cure human diseases come from plants or even from insects. When we destroy a wild area, we may be destroying a whole species of plant or animal that is not found anywhere else. Without knowing it, we may be destroying the cure for cancer or AIDS or some other terrible disease.

There are so many ways in which animals are mistreated, many that people don’t even know about. Or, if they do, they just think of it as something they can’t do anything about. That’s almost never true.

Think, for example, of the way most farm animals are treated today. We call it “factory farming.” Hens, in most parts of the Western world, must live their lives squashed together in very tiny cages. Because they peck each other, their beaks are cut off. It hurts. Pigs, who are as intelligent as dogs, are crowded together in the same way, with no opportunity for rooting about in the ground. It’s especially cruel to pen up young pigs, for they are very playful and love to run and chase each other.

Awaken: This is is why more people are now choosing a plant-based diet…

Jane G: It was when I learned about factory farming that I stopped eating meat.

Awaken: There are so many ways we can help just through our everyday eating and spending habits…

Jane G: Thousands of animals are used every year for testing things such as detergents, cosmetics, and, in fact, almost every new product that comes on the market. Rabbits and guinea pigs, even dogs, cats, and monkeys are used for this testing, as well as rats and mice. Sometimes the testing can cause the animal a lot of pain.

Many people are fighting to change all this. Some scientists are working very hard to find out ways of testing substances without using any animals at all. You can help by buying products that have not been tested on animals.

Awaken: But even though there are more effective ways of testing products, these methods are still employed, even in the medical context, aren’t they?

Jane G: Many animals are used in medical research, as well. And not only does this mostly cause a lot of pain, but the animals are so often kept in tiny cramped cages. Unfortunately, a great amount of the research is of little or no use to humans. All that suffering for nothing.

Awaken: What would you say to those who would ask, “Why should we bother about the way animals are treated? Humans suffer, too, etc.”

Jane G: Of course, we must try to help human beings. But suppose I ask you, “Why? Why does it matter if fellow human beings suffer?” They belong to the same species as you and me, so that we know that they have feelings like our own. We know that they can feel pain, as we do. We know that they can feel sadness, fear, despair, loneliness, boredom.

Well, so can chimpanzees. And so can dogs and cats and pigs and oh! so many others. Don’t you think so? If you agree, then you know why we should care about the suffering of nonhuman beings… Cruelty is a terrible thing. I believe it is the worst human sin. When you are cruel you cause someone to suffer needlessly.

Awaken: Could you pass on any practical, everyday advice with regard to how we can help?

Jane G: It is really important for animals that we speak our minds when we see something wrong. That is not always easy.

When I was a child I once saw four boys, much bigger than I was, pulling the legs off crabs. I was very upset. I asked them why they did it, and they said, “None of your business.” I told them it was cruel. They laughed. And I went away. Now, forty years later, I am still ashamed of myself. Why didn’t I try to stop them from tormenting those crabs?

My son did better. Once, when he was five years old, he was at a nursery school in California (at a time when I used to teach, one quarter a year, at Stanford University). One day he saw a seven-year-old boy hosing a terrified rabbit in its cage and laughing. Grub went up and tried to pull the hose away. The boy wouldn’t let go, so Grub started a fight. And though he was much smaller, he managed to win.

The teacher was very angry with Grub for fighting and punished him. Of course, we shouldn’t try to get our way through aggression. But she didn’t punish the other boy for being cruel. He should have been punished, too— don’t you think so?

Awaken: Yes I do! Are there any stories you’d like to leave us with?

Jane G: There is a true story that I want to tell you… It’s about a chimpanzee called Old Man. He was bought by a zoo in North America when he was an adolescent. We don’t know his history. Perhaps he was once in a lab or a circus. But he hated people. He was put to live on an island with three grown-up females. He got on fine with them. And one of the females had a baby. Old Man was the father.

Just about that time, a young man called Marc Cusano got a job looking after the chimps. Everyone told him how dangerous they were. And, truly, adult chimps in captivity often are dangerous because so many of them have not been well treated.

So Marc didn’t go onto the island with the chimps’ food. Instead he paddled a little boat out toward the island and threw the food onto the shore. But Marc spent time watching the chimps, too. He saw how gentle Old Man was with the baby. He saw how, when they were excited at meal times, they would hug and kiss each other for joy. And he realized what wonderful beings they were.

Then he decided that he wanted to have a better relationship with them himself. So he began to make friends. He took the boat closer and closer. And the day came when he actually handed Old Man a banana. “Jane,” he told me afterward, “now I know how you felt when David Greybeard first took a banana from you!”It was the beginning of a friendship.

Soon the day came when he dared step off the boat. Old Man let Marc groom him. And they sometimes played together. The three females were more standoffish, but they didn’t seem to mind Marc coming onto their island. The infant Flint reaching out to his human companion.

Then, one day, Marc slipped and fell. The infant was close by and was startled. She screamed in fright, and at once her mother, thinking Marc had hurt her child, leapt onto him and began to bite his neck. He felt the blood run down. Before he could get up, the other two females joined the attack. One bit his arm, one his leg. He felt his hand go numb. He thought that he had had it. He could never escape now.

Then Old Man rushed up. He seized hold of the females, one after the other, and pulled them off Marc. He hurled them away. Marc began to drag himself toward the boat. Old Man stayed close beside him, threatening the females every time they tried to attack again. At last Marc got off the island. Old Man had saved his life.

That story has taught me a lot. If a chimpanzee can reach out to help a human, then surely we humans can reach out and try to help the chimpanzees and all the other creatures we live with in the world today.

This is what I am trying to do. I hope you will help me.

Awaken: Jane, we are so grateful to have spent this time with you. Thank you for all you have done for the animals and for the planet!

This is one of Awaken’s Dream Interviews, conducted by Donna Quesada, and All Answers are Verbatim from Jane Goodall.