Goodall speaks at Schweitzer conference
Tanya Lagatella
Issue date: 11/2/05 Section: Campus News
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"I travel the world 300 days a year trying to raise awareness," Goodall said. She stood poised at the podium between two white doves that hung from the rafters. Their wingspan seemed to engulf the audience.
"How did a little girl growing up in England before World War II get involved with studying Chimpanzees," Goodall said. She described how she became involved with primatology.
"I owe just about everything I've done right with my life and nothing I've done wrong in my life to my mother," Goodall said.
Her mother supported her passion and curiosity for all living things. She introduced Goodall to the book "Tarzan" by Edgar Rice Burroughs when she was 11 years old.
"Of course I was jealous when he married that wimpy other Jane," Goodall said. At 11 years old decided she would move to Africa and study the native animals of the undiscovered dark continent.
Goodall's mother told her to work hard, take advantage of opportunities, and never give up. "Don't let anyone laugh you out of a dream," Goodall said. She vividly remembers the skeptics who told her to pick a more achievable dream.
In the summer of 1960, a 26-year old Goodall arrived on the shore of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa to study the local chimpanzee population. There was no precedent for a girl from England with no university schooling to study animals in Africa.
"A girl, on her own, in the forest, with potentially dangerous animals," Goodall said with a gasp as she described the skepticism of the adventure she says started in 1960 and has never stopped. Her mother came for four of the six months she spent in Africa studying the chimpanzees.
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