Jane Goodall

Facts, information and articles about Jane Goodall, animal rights activist and a famous woman In history

Jane Goodall summary: Jane Goodall is a famous animal rights activist and environmentalist. She made many discoveries in her long term research into chimpanzee society about their behavior, diet and interactions with one another. She travels extensively giving lectures on primates and their behavior and is a name that is easily recognized. She started the Jane Goodall Institute which now has 19 offices across the globe and she spends a significant portion of her time fighting for chimpanzee’s rights.

She is known best for studying chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream National Park located in Tanzania during 1960. She hadn’t had formal college training in scientific studies which is accredited for her particular knack for picking up on nuances that quantitative studies might miss. She made careful notes of different chimpanzee’s personalities as well as noting they were able to reason and feel sorrow and joy. She is also well-known for giving the chimps in her studies names instead of simply using the widely held practice of assigning numbers to each animal.

She discovered that they will use tools, a fact which shocked many in the science community. She also discovered that they are aggressive enough to eat smaller primates as in the case of the colobus. She documented many behaviors that showcased their emotional sides, such as patting, scratching and even aggressive behaviors. This was a sizable finding that challenged many ideas and thoughts on chimp behavior and diet. She is the only known human to have become fully accepted into chimpanzee society.