48 Facts About Richard Leakey

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician.

Richard Leakey was Director of the National Museum of Kenya, founded the NGO WildlifeDirect, and was the chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Richard Leakey served in the powerful office of cabinet secretary and head of public service during the tail end of President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi's government.

Richard Leakey co-founded the "Turkana Basin Institute" in an academic partnership with Stony Brook University, where he was an anthropology professor.

Richard Leakey served as the chair of the Turkana Basin Institute until his death.

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was born on 19 December 1944 in Nairobi.

Richard Leakey's parents founded the Dalmatian Club of East Africa and won a prize in 1957.

The Richard Leakey boys participated in games conducted by both adults and children, in which they tried to imitate early humans, catching springhare and small antelope by hand on the Serengeti.

In 1956, aged eleven, Richard Leakey fell from his horse, fracturing his skull and nearly dying as a result.

Richard Leakey went looking for fossils in a Land Rover, but could find none, until his parents assigned Glynn Isaac to go with him.

In 1964, on his second Lake Natron expedition, Richard Leakey met an archaeologist named Margaret Cropper.

When Margaret returned to England, Richard Leakey decided to follow suit to study for a degree and become better acquainted with her.

Richard Leakey completed his high school requirements in six months; meanwhile Margaret obtained her degree at the University of Edinburgh.

Richard Leakey passed the entrance exams for admission to college, but in 1965 he and Margaret decided to marry and return to Kenya.

Richard Leakey's father offered him a job at Centre for Prehistory and Palaeontology.

Richard Leakey worked excavating at Lake Baringo and continued his photographic safari business, making enough money to buy a house in Karen, a pleasant suburb of Nairobi.

Richard Leakey married his colleague Meave Epps in 1970 and they had two daughters, Louise was born on 1972 and and Samira.

Richard Leakey formed the Kenya Museum Associates with influential Kenyans in 1955.

Richard Leakey radioed Louis for a new, aluminium boat, which the National Geographic Society was happy to supply.

Richard Leakey took it to be Homo erectus, but Louis identified it as Homo sapiens.

The map led Richard Leakey to expect volcanic rock below him but he saw sediments.

In 1968 Louis and Richard Leakey attended a meeting of the Research and Exploration Committee of the National Geographic Society to ask for money for Omo.

Richard Leakey won, but chairman Leonard Carmichael told him he'd better find something or never "come begging at our door again".

The curator, Robert Carcasson, resigned in protest, and Richard Leakey was left with the museum at his command, which he, like Louis before him, used as a base of operations.

Each took over for the other when one was busy with something else or incapacitated, and Richard Leakey continued to inform his father immediately of hominid finds.

In contrast to his father, Richard Leakey ran a disciplined and tidy camp, although, in order to find fossils, he did push the expedition harder than it wished.

Donald Johanson and Richard Leakey held different views about human evolution.

In 1989 Richard Leakey was appointed the head of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department by President Daniel Arap Moi in response to the international outcry over the poaching of elephants and the impact it was having on the wildlife of Kenya.

The department was replaced by the Kenya Wildlife Service in 1990, and Richard Leakey became its first chairman.

Richard Leakey's view was that parks were self-contained ecosystems that had to be fenced in and the humans kept out.

In 2016, Richard Leakey was named Conservationist of the Year by The Perfect World Foundation and won "The Fragile Rhino" prize at the Elephant Ball in Gothenburg, Sweden.

In 1993, a small propeller-driven plane piloted by Richard Leakey crashed, crushing his lower legs, both of which were later amputated.

An annoyed Richard Leakey resigned publicly in a press conference in January 1994.

Richard Leakey was replaced by David Western as the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Richard Leakey wrote about his experiences at the Kenya Wildlife Service in his book Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures.

However, Richard Leakey found himself sidelined after the money arrived, and his reforms were blocked in the courts.

Richard Leakey was sacked from his cabinet post in 2001.

Richard Leakey left Kenya for the US in 2002 and became a professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, New York.

In 2004, Richard Leakey founded and chaired WildlifeDirect, a Kenya-based charitable organisation.

In June 2013, Richard Leakey was awarded the Isaac Asimov Science Award from the American Humanist Association.

Richard Leakey's groundbreaking work contributed to the recognition of Africa as the birthplace of humankind, that contributed as evidence that the earliest humans had lived on the African continent.

Richard Leakey was known to have spearheaded campaigns to stop poaching in Kenya.

Richard Leakey felt that the viaduct would set an example for the rest of Africa in balancing economic development with environmental protection.

Richard Leakey spoke fluent Kiswahili and moved effortlessly between white and black communities.

Richard Leakey stated that he was an atheist and a humanist.

Richard Leakey was diagnosed with a terminal kidney disease in 1969.

Richard Leakey died at his home outside Nairobi, on 2 January 2022, less than a month after his 77th birthday.

Richard Leakey's early published works include Origins and The People of the Lake, The Illustrated Origin of Species, and The Making of Mankind.