55 Facts About Jane Goodall

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist.

Jane Goodall is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.

Jane Goodall is an honorary member of the World Future Council.

Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in 1934 in Hampstead, London, to businessman Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, a novelist from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, who wrote under the name Vanne Morris-Goodall.

The family later moved to Bournemouth, and Jane Goodall attended Uplands School, an independent school in nearby Poole.

Jane Goodall had always been drawn to animals and Africa, which brought her to the farm of a friend in the Kenya highlands in 1957.

Leakey raised funds, and on 14 July 1960, Jane Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park, becoming the first of what would come to be called The Trimates.

Jane Goodall was accompanied by her mother, whose presence was necessary to satisfy the requirements of David Anstey, chief warden, who was concerned for their safety.

Jane Goodall has stated that women were not accepted in the field when she started her research in the late 1950s.

Leakey arranged funding, and in 1962 he sent Jane Goodall, who had no degree, to the University of Cambridge.

Jane Goodall went to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in natural sciences by 1964, which is when she went up to the new Darwin College, Cambridge, for a Doctor of Philosophy in ethology.

Jane Goodall was the eighth person to be allowed to study for a PhD there without first having obtained a bachelor's degree.

Jane Goodall's thesis was completed in 1966 under the supervision of Robert Hinde on the Behaviour of free-living chimpanzees, detailing her first five years of study at the Gombe Reserve.

Jane Goodall studied chimpanzee social and family life beginning with the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, in 1960.

In contrast to the peaceful and affectionate behaviours she observed, Jane Goodall found an aggressive side of chimpanzee nature at Gombe Stream.

Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzees will systematically hunt and eat smaller primates such as colobus monkeys.

Jane Goodall watched a hunting group isolate a colobus monkey high in a tree and block all possible exits; then one chimpanzee climbed up and captured and killed the colobus.

Jane Goodall observed the tendency for aggression and violence within chimpanzee troops.

Jane Goodall observed dominant females deliberately killing the young of other females in the troop to maintain their dominance, sometimes going as far as cannibalism.

Jane Goodall's findings revolutionised contemporary knowledge of chimpanzee behaviour and were further evidence of the social similarities between humans and chimpanzees, albeit in a much darker manner.

Jane Goodall set herself apart from the traditional conventions of the time by naming the animals in her studies of primates instead of assigning each a number.

Jane Goodall was the lowest-ranking member of a troop for a period of 22 months.

In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports the Gombe research, and she is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats.

In 1992, Jane Goodall founded the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in the Republic of Congo to care for chimpanzees orphaned due to bush-meat trade.

In 1994, Jane Goodall founded the Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education pilot project to protect chimpanzees' habitat from deforestation by reforesting hills around Gombe while simultaneously educating neighbouring communities on sustainability and agriculture training.

In 2018 and 2020, Jane Goodall partnered with friend and CEO Michael Cammarata on two natural product lines from Schmidt's Naturals and Neptune Wellness Solutions.

Jane Goodall is on the advisory council for the world's largest chimpanzee sanctuary outside of Africa, Save the Chimps in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Jane Goodall is the former president of Advocates for Animals, an organisation based in Edinburgh, Scotland, that campaigns against the use of animals in medical research, zoos, farming and sport.

Jane Goodall is a vegetarian and advocates the diet for ethical, environmental, and health reasons.

Jane Goodall is an outspoken environmental advocate, speaking on the effects of climate change on endangered species such as chimpanzees.

In 2008, Jane Goodall demanded the European Union end the use of medical research on animals and ensure more funding for alternative methods of medical research.

Jane Goodall is a patron of population concern charity Population Matters and as of 2017 is an ambassador for Disneynature.

In 2011, Jane Goodall became a patron of Australian animal protection group Voiceless.

Jane Goodall worked with a group of aspiring social entrepreneurs to create a workshop to engage young people in conserving biodiversity, and to tackle a perceived global lack of awareness of the issue.

In 2014, Jane Goodall wrote to Air France executives, criticizing the airline's continued transport of monkeys to laboratories.

Jane Goodall called the practice "cruel" and "traumatic" for the monkeys involved.

Jane Goodall is a critic of fox hunting and was among more than 20 high-profile people who signed a letter to Members of Parliament in 2015 opposing Conservative prime minister David Cameron's plan to amend the Hunting Act 2004.

In 2020, continuing her organization's work on the environment, Jane Goodall vowed to plant 5 million trees, part of the 1 trillion tree initiative founded by the World Economic Forum.

Jane Goodall has prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces.

Jane Goodall's family were occasional churchgoers, but Goodall began attending more regularly as a teenager when the church appointed a new minister, Trevor Davies.

Jane Goodall used unconventional practices in her study; for example, naming individuals instead of numbering them.

Jane Goodall herself acknowledged that feeding contributed to aggression within and between groups, but maintained that the effect was limited to alteration of the intensity and not the nature of chimpanzee conflict, and further suggested that feeding was necessary for the study to be effective at all.

Jane Goodall wrote a preface to The Far Side Gallery 5, detailing her version of the controversy, and the institute's letter was included next to the cartoon in the complete Far Side collection.

Jane Goodall praised Larson's creative ideas, which often compare and contrast the behaviour of humans and animals.

On 3 March 2022, in celebration of Women's History Month and International Women's Day, The Lego Group issued set number 40530, A Jane Goodall Tribute, depicting a Jane Goodall minifigure and three chimpanzees in an African forest scene.

On 31 December 2021, Jane Goodall was the guest editor of the BBC Radio Four Today programme.

Jane Goodall chose Francis Collins to be presenter of Thought for the Day.

Jane Goodall has received many honours for her environmental and humanitarian work, as well as others.

Jane Goodall was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in an Investiture held at Buckingham Palace in 2004.

Jane Goodall is a member of the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine and a patron of Population Matters.

Jane Goodall has received many tributes, honours, and awards from local governments, schools, institutions, and charities around the world.

Jane Goodall is honoured by The Walt Disney Company with a plaque on the Tree of Life at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park, alongside a carving of her beloved David Greybeard, the original chimpanzee that approached Jane Goodall during her first year at Gombe.

Jane Goodall is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

In 2010, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds held a benefit concert at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington DC to commemorate "Gombe 50: a global celebration of Jane Goodall's pioneering chimpanzee research and inspiring vision for our future".

In 2022, Dr Jane Goodall received the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication for her long-term study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.