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Renowned zoologist and environmental conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, 91, appeared on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast on May 21.
During her conversation with Cooper, Dr. Goodall candidly reflected on her career and journey. At one point, when the time Dr. Goodall was featured on National Geographic's cover was brought up, the conversation turned towards how the spotlight was more on her appearance than her work.
"Some of the jealous male scientists will say, 'Well, you know, she's just got this notoriety and she's getting money from Geographic and they want her on the cover and they wouldn't put her on the cover if she didn't have nice legs.'... Back then, all I wanted was to get back to the chimps. So, if my legs were getting me the money, thank you, legs," Dr. Goodall commented.
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Born in Bournemouth, England, in 1934, Dr. Jane Goodall is well known for her research on chimpanzees. At the age of 23, she met paleoanthropologist Dr. Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey on a ship journey to Kenya, who offered her a job at the local museum of natural history. Later, he sent her to Gombe Stream National Park (then known as Gombe Stream Game Reserve) in Tanzania, where she did groundbreaking research on wild chimpanzees.
In the latest episode of Call Her Daddy, Dr. Goodall also talked about why her first marriage to wildlife photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick, whom she met during a National Geographic project, didn't work out. The scientist revealed that her marriage ended after 10 years due to different career paths.
"He had to go on with his career, and he got some money to do films on the Serengeti, and I couldn't leave Gombe. I had to stay… I couldn't leave Gombe, and so it slowly drifted apart. And it was sad," she reflected.
What scientific discoveries were made by Dr. Jane Goodall?
In the podcast, Dr. Jane Goodall shared details about her discoveries on chimpanzees. She shared that Dr. Louis Leakey, a paleoanthropologist, hired her as a secretary and later sent her to Tanzania to study wild chimpanzees.
According to National Geographic, Dr. Goodall made three discoveries. The first was that chimpanzees were omnivores and not herbivores. She discovered this while observing a chimpanzee eat a dead animal. The second was that they used tools when she observed one using a blade of grass to eat termites. The third discovery she made was that the chimpanzees made their own tools after observing one strip the leaves from twigs.
In the podcast, Dr. Jane Goodall talked about how she excitedly shared these observations with her mentor.
"The reason this was so exciting is that at that time, it was thought by Western science that only humans used and made tools. We were defined as man, of course, man, the toolmaker. And so when I wrote to my mentor Louis Leakey, he was just so excited... He said, 'We must redefine tool. Redefine man. Or accept chimpanzees as humans,'" she said.
At that time, scientists made observations using numbers, while Dr. Jane Goodall gave different names to chimpanzees to record their activities. She made her groundbreaking discoveries while observing an old chimpanzee whom she named David Greybeard.
Due to her comprehensive fieldwork, Dr. Jane Goodall was able to complete her doctoral program at Cambridge University even without a graduate degree. She also wrote a book, My Friends, the Wild Chimpanzees, which was targeted at a general audience rather than the scientific community.
