Who Is Jane Goodall?
Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE, the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, was born in London, England on April 3, 1934. As a child she was given a lifelike chimpanzee toy named Jubilee by her father, although friends believed it would scare her. Today, the toy still sits on her dresser in London. After the divorce of her parents when Goodall was only 12, she moved with her mother to Bournemouth.
It was while in Bournemouth that Goodall first met up with distinguished wildlife authority Sir David Attenborough, who taught her the importance of the higher order primates, and impressed upon her the need to defend the fragile biosphere.
Goodall was interested in animals from her youth; this prompted noted anthropologist Louis Leakey to hire her as his assistant/secretary. He invited her to accompany him and his wife, Mary Leakey, to dig at Olduvai Gorge. Eventually he asked Jane to study the chimpanzees of Gombe Stream National Park (then known as Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve). She arrived at Gombe in July, 1960. Leakey arranged for Goodall to return to the UK where she earned a doctorate in ethology from the University of Cambridge in 1964. Along with Dian Fossey, famous for living with gorillas, and Biruté Galdikas, who advanced studies in orangutans, Goodall was one of three women recently dubbed by some as "Leakey's Angels".
Read more about this topic: Jane Goodall Institute (Hong Kong)