DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Jane Goodall, the internationally renowned conservationist and researcher of chimpanzees in their natural habitat, died last week. She was 91. Goodall had no scientific training when she made her way to East Africa at age 23. She went to work as a secretary for paleontologist Louis Leakey, who'd been hoping to find someone to study a group of chimpanzees on Lake Tanganyika. Goodall took the challenge, and groundbreaking observations followed about the chimps' ability to make and use tools, their diet, their mating patterns, and their social interactions.
Goodall shared her work in many books, articles, and documentaries, with herself as a character in the stories. The University of Cambridge recognized her contributions by accepting her into its doctoral program, which she completed in 1965. As her career developed, she saw the need for protecting chimps' habitat and established the Jane Goodall Institute to advance her conservation work. She wrote 32 books - 15 for children - and was recognized with a host of awards, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom and being named a dame commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Today, we'll listen to parts of two interviews Terry Gross recorded with Goodall. The first was in 1993, when Goodall had co-authored a book with Dale Peterson about the relationship between chimps and humans. Jane Goodall told Terry that when she first began studying the chimps, she was discouraged from projecting human qualities on the animals, but she disregarded that advice.
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JANE GOODALL: For one thing, I gave them names instead of numbers - terrible thing to do. For another thing, the first scientific paper I wrote, I talked about chimpanzees as he and she, and I said this individual who. And the article came back, and it was substituted for he and she, and which was substituted for who. And then in those days, you couldn't talk about something like adolescence and childhood. You couldn't talk about motivation. You couldn't talk about excitement. There was very, very little you could do in terms of describing chimpanzee behavior in terms that ordinary people would understand.
TERRY GROSS: Do you think that that's changed? Do you think that your more personal style has become accepted scientifically?
GOODALL: I think that in most scientific circles today, these things that I've mentioned are accepted. I think people have come to realize that when we're talking about creatures who share over 98% of their genetic material with us, creatures whom we know to have very, very similar central nervous systems and brains, you know, it's completely crazy to imagine that they wouldn't have similar feelings, similar ways of tackling problems in life. Mostly people accept today that that is so.
GROSS: In writing about chimp behavior, you say that male chimps are more respectful of men, especially men with deep voices, and they take liberties with women. How did you find that out, and what kind of liberties did the chimps take with you?
GOODALL: Really, until quite recently, there hasn't been that obvious a difference in the way they treat, or they treated, male and female researchers. But we now have one chimpanzee who's a rogue. And he's actually very dangerous to female researchers and most particularly to me. And it's very sad after 32 years in the field that one chimpanzee has, in a way, made Gombe feel a little unsafe to me today.
GROSS: Well, what does he do that's a threat to you?
GOODALL: He's probably 10 times stronger than I am. I mean, a big male chimp is said to be four to five times stronger than an adult human male. And Frodo is the largest, heaviest chimp we've ever known at Gombe. He's 115 pounds. He's about 20 years old. He's absolutely magnificent. He's one of Fifi's offspring. And what he'll do is display that's charging with his hair bristling, dragging branches and things straight towards me, pull me over, stamp on me, perhaps display away, come back and do the same thing again. He's actually done it three times.
GROSS: I'm sure you've asked yourself why you've become a target of his. Do you have any idea why?
GOODALL: I can only think that it's because of all the people working at Gombe, he has the least fear of me. I've always been able to get very close to even nervous individuals. And that's because I'm calm and quiet and I don't try to get too close, and I don't push. And so he has absolutely no fear, no respect, no - you know, nothing that will block his aggressive behavior towards humans, particularly me.
GROSS: I'm sure you've asked yourself what the chimps think of you and what they think of what you're doing there and who you are.
GOODALL: I doubt they think very much now. I think we're just part of the environment, as, you know, there are baboons and there are bush pigs, and we're just part of that natural environment to almost all of them. They grew up with us.
GROSS: Did you learn to make the sounds that chimps use to communicate?
GOODALL: I can make most of them. Most of the people studying chimps can make those sounds, but we don't actually make them in the wild. I sometimes make them to chimps in captive groups, and they usually reply. Certainly, the little greeting sound when you want to approach a nervous young chimp, which I have to do all the time because one of the things that we're doing with the institute is to rescue orphan chimps whose mothers have been shot by hunters. They're confiscated by the government, and we care for them. And to see some of those pathetic little orphans in the markets being sold at the street side, they're dehydrated, their eyes are dull, they're losing hope, they're losing health, and you go up and you make this soft little (vocalizing), which is a gentle greeting, and they'll sometimes put their arm around your neck.
GROSS: How come you wouldn't use that language in the wild?
GOODALL: Because we've always tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, to keep in the background, to let the chimpanzees get on with their lives, not to try and communicate with them, but to be part of the environment that they will ignore, and they can get on with their lives.
GROSS: What else would you say to a chimp in captivity?
GOODALL: Well, I sometimes make the distance call, which chimpanzees at Gombe make when they're calling out from one side of a valley to the other, and they're basically identifying themselves or perhaps questioning, who's over there? I'm here.
GROSS: Is that a sound you could demonstrate for us?
GOODALL: Well, I can demonstrate it, but I'll just lean away from the microphone because it's rather loud. But (vocalizing).
GROSS: (Laughter) In all your years in the field studying chimpanzees, were there particular aspects of chimp behavior that you felt you understood and were particularly like your own, particularly like the way humans behave?
GOODALL: Oh, I think a lot. One of the most striking, really, is the nonverbal communication patterns - so that chimpanzees will kiss, embrace, hold hands, pat one another on the back, swagger, threaten by shaking their fists, tickle. And the striking thing here is that not only do the patterns look like so many of ours, but they're used in the same context, so they obviously mean the same kind of thing.
GROSS: When you first went to the bush, you were given the opportunity to do that by the anthropologist Louis Leakey. And this was to be the first really long-term study of chimpanzees. Other people, I believe, had studied them for months at a time. You were supposed to go there for a few years. So you got there, and you went with your mother because you weren't allowed to go by yourself. What was that story?
GOODALL: Young English women didn't do that sort of thing. In fact, as I grew up, I was told I couldn't. That's what I'd always wanted to do. But I had this great mother who always used to say, Jane, if you want to do something enough and you work hard enough and you take advantage of opportunities, you'll get there in the end. And so when I was told by the British authorities that it wouldn't be appropriate for me to go out completely on my own without some kind of female companion, my mother was the one who offered to come.
GROSS: What did she do to help you when you were getting started?
GOODALL: Oh, she was fabulous. She had a clinic. Her brother was a surgeon, and he supplied her with all kinds of simple medications, like aspirins and Band-Aids and Epsom salts, you know, that kind of thing, something that anybody can administer. And she set up a little clinic on the shore of the lake for the local fishermen who were living around the park. And she had so much patience and so much concern and care that with these simple remedies, she sometimes worked wonderful, amazing cures. In fact, we found out later that she was known as the white witch doctor. And, of course, this was tremendously helpful in establishing friendly, good relationships with the local people, and those have remained ever since.
GROSS: How long did she stay with you?
GOODALL: She was with me about - it was between 3 and 4 months. And by that time, the local authorities realized that, you know, it was OK and I was going to be all right. And I had a staff by then. I had a cook and a boat driver, and I'd made friends with the local people. And they said, all right, you can stay.
GROSS: When you got to Tanzania and you knew you were there to watch and research the chimps, were they easy to find?
GOODALL: No. They used to run away. The first moment they saw me, they would depart into the undergrowth, and it was very frustrating. But gradually, from an open, rocky peak overlooking two valleys - one on the north, one on the south - using my binoculars, wearing the same colored clothes every day, they got used to this queer, white-skinned ape who'd appeared so surprisingly in their midst. And so gradually, I was able to get closer and closer and learn ever more about their fascinating behavior.
GROSS: One chimp was the - particularly helpful to you because he was the first chimp that befriended you, shall we say. How - what did he do to help introduce you to the others?
GOODALL: He was fantastic. That was David Greybeard, and I probably owe more to him than any other chimp throughout these long 33 years. For some reason, he had a particularly calm and trusting disposition. Of course, every chimpanzee has his or her own totally individual personality, just like we do. And David, instead of running off, would just sit and calmly continue what he was doing. It was David who one day arrived in my camp to feed on the ripe fruits of the oil nut palm growing there. And while he was there, he saw some bananas lying on the table, and he took those. My cook told me about this male chimp who'd arrived. And eventually, I stayed down and waited to see who it was, and then that's how I found out it was David Greybeard. I'd already named him from my encounters in the forest.
And from that time on, he would sometimes wander up to me in the forest to see if I had a banana somewhere hidden about my person or in my haversack. And the other chimps would start to run, and then they'd stop. And their eyes were big and wide, and they'd think, what is this? What is going on? And so they realized that I wasn't so frightening after all. It was as though David had opened a door into what was then a really magic, unknown world.
GROSS: What were the signs that you were being accepted by the other chimps?
GOODALL: They didn't run away. They stayed when I could approach. And they would look up, and then they'd continue their grooming or their playing or their feeding or whatever it was they were doing before I came.
GROSS: Would they approach you and make friendly gestures towards you?
GOODALL: Oh, no. Absolutely not. They just continued with what they were doing.
GROSS: Did it ever get to that point, as time went on, where chimps would come up to you and be friendly in a conscious way?
GOODALL: Well, you see, we tried to discourage all that kind of thing. They would sometimes come up to peer if there was a banana anywhere. But as we discouraged any kind of contact, we didn't really have that much. There was one short period. It was before I realized we could make this a really long-term study. And it was so exciting to be able to go up to and groom a completely wild adult male chimp, David Greybeard. It was so exciting when a mother allowed her infant to come up and touch me. It was so incredibly moving when a juvenile allowed me to play with him. And I wouldn't have foregone those experiences, but in a way, they were wrong because it was dangerous to try and establish communication with them. It was dangerous to the objective collection of information.
GROSS: You become too much of the story and start to change the chimp behavior by your presence and...
GOODALL: That's right.
GROSS: ...Involvement.
GOODALL: Yeah. I mean, it would be very easy to become part of the group. And then for one, that would disturb the natural behavior more than we do by being there anyway. And for another, it could be very dangerous 'cause they do attack each other quite often for no very obvious reason sometimes, and they are very strong. And if we were perceived by them to be part of the group, they'd probably all treat all of us the way Frodo treats me.
GROSS: That's interesting. Jane Goodall, I thank you very much for talking with us.
GOODALL: Thank you.
DAVIES: Jane Goodall speaking with Terry Gross, recorded in 1993. We'll hear some of a second conversation the two had in 1999 after this short break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. And today, we're remembering Jane Goodall, known for her work researching the behavior of chimpanzees and protecting their habitats. Goodall died last week at the age of 91. Terry spoke with Goodall in 1999 upon publication of her book, "Reason For Hope," about her years in the wild.
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GROSS: You went first to secretarial school (laughter), which isn't the perfect training for a primatologist. What were you expecting to happen by - you know, what was your plan going to secretarial school?
GOODALL: Well, from the age of 8 or 9, I wanted to go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them. And that was because I fell in love with Tarzan and was terribly jealous of Tarzan's Jane. And I thought she was a wimp and I'd have been much better as a mate for Tarzan myself, which is true. I would have been.
GROSS: (Laughter).
GOODALL: And, you know, everybody laughed at me. How could I go to Africa? We didn't have any money. It was during the second world war. There were no jets going over with tourists. And we just heard rumors about, you know, poisoned arrows and sinister drumbeat messages and things like that. But my mother never laughed. So I left school and didn't go to university because at that time in England, unless you were good in a foreign language, you couldn't get a scholarship. And I was always hopeless in foreign languages. And so my mother said, well, if you are set on going to Africa or some other foreign place, if you learn secretarial work, then you can get a job anywhere in the world, which, of course, was - brilliant idea because that's exactly what I did. I had my first job with Louis Leakey as his secretary.
GROSS: How did you get a job as his secretary? How did you even meet him?
GOODALL: Well, I was in London, and I had this wonderful job with documentary films, and it was quite...
GROSS: As a secretary?
GOODALL: As a - well, a secretary, but not really. I sort of was choosing music and things like that for these documentary films. And it was a fascinating job, and I met lots of people, but it didn't pay very well. Lots of jobs didn't just after the war. So when I had a letter from a school friend inviting me to Kenya, where her parents had just bought a farm, I instantly handed in my resignation and went home and worked as a waitress and saved up my wages and my tips until I had enough for a return fare by boat.
So once I got out to Kenya, in Nairobi, I heard about Louis Leakey. And somebody said, Jane, if you really are interested in animals, you should meet Louis. So I made an appointment, went to see him in his office at the Natural History Museum. And I think he was impressed 'cause although I didn't have a degree, I'd gone on reading about Africa and animals, and I could answer so many of his questions. So he gave me a job working for him that same day, the day I met him.
GROSS: And what was your job when you were his personal secretary?
GOODALL: Oh, it was just writing his letters and speaking to people on the phone and, you know, that kind of thing. But I had the amazing opportunity of going with him, his wife and one other young English girl on to the Serengeti to the now-famous Olduvai Gorge, where so many early human fossils have been found. But at that time, only the remains of prehistoric nonhumans had been found.
So instead of being a road leading there, as there is today, this was wild, untouched Africa - no tracks, no trails, just occasionally the odd Maasai walking by. And all the animals were there. So that after the hard work of searching for bones, fossilized bones during the day in the hot sun, Gillian and I were allowed to go onto the plains. And, you know, there were giraffe and zebra and antelopes and one evening a rhino and one evening a young male lion, who followed us quite a long way. And I think that's when Louis realized I was the person he'd been looking for. You know, I didn't care about clothes and hairdressers and parties and boyfriends. I just wanted to be out there with the animals.
GROSS: And so he gave you the chimp project to do, researching chimpanzees in the wild?
GOODALL: Right. He had two major problems to overcome. One was, how was he going to get the money for this crazy scheme? I mean, in those days, young people didn't go tramping off living with animals in the bush, especially girls. And finally, he got some money from a wealthy American businessman, Leighton Wilkie. And secondly, Tanzania, where the chimps are, was Tanganyika then. It was under British colonial rule - was actually a protectorate. And so the authorities, the British authorities said, a young girl on her own in the bush? Preposterous. Impossible. But Louis never gave up. So in the end, they said, oh, well, all right, but she must bring someone with her. And who volunteered to come for the first four months but that same amazing mother.
GROSS: Did you think of Leakey as a early feminist in a way because he thought it was fine to have you, a young woman, heading this project and working alone in the wild?
GOODALL: Quite honestly, it never occurred to me. I mean, I grew up in a family of very strong women. There was - you know, when the war started, my father joined up. Mum, my sister and I went to live with her mother, and the - my mother had two other sisters living in the house. And then every weekend or most weekends, my uncle would come. He was the one male presence. And it just never occurred to me to question that I would be able to do what I wanted. It didn't - you know, it just didn't enter my thinking that I couldn't do some things 'cause I was a woman.
So when Leakey suggested I went out, we didn't actually talk about it much as being strange that I was a female. And it wasn't until the British authorities started saying they were horrified that I realized it was perhaps a little strange at the time. But he just felt that women would be more patient and therefore make better observers.
DAVIES: Jane Goodall speaking with Terry Gross in 1999. Goodall died last week at the age of 91. We'll hear more of their conversation after this break. Later, our critic-at-large John Powers reviews the new film "A House Of Dynamite" by Kathryn Bigelow, who made "The Hurt Locker." I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF LESTER BOWIE'S BRASS FANTASY'S "I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and today we're remembering Jane Goodall, the internationally renowned conservationist and groundbreaking researcher of the behavior of chimpanzees in the wild. We're going to hear more of her conversation with Terry Gross recorded in 1999. Goodall got started observing chimpanzees when she was in her 20s in East Africa, working with paleontologist Louis Leakey. Though she had no scientific training then, Leakey sent Goodall on a project he'd long hoped someone would pursue - studying a group of chimpanzees on Lake Tanganyika.
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GROSS: Now, you write that when you first started doing work in the wild, you weren't afraid of being harmed by wild animals. You believed that the animals would sense that you intended no harm, that you were there as a friend and that Leakey encouraged you to believe this. Do you think he should've discouraged you to believe this and given you a little more cause for concern?
GOODALL: Well, no, because at the same time, he taught me that I had to be very careful and that animals were dangerous or could be. And that, for example, if you got between a mother and her young, you'd be in big, big trouble. If you startled an animal, you'd be in big trouble. And that you might come across some creature who'd been wounded and who hated people. So I was perfectly aware of possible danger and tried to be as careful as I could. And he spent quite a lot of time teaching me so that he didn't tell me not to be afraid. And I think there are moments when fear is terribly important. You know, if you suddenly hear stamping or snorting close by in the undergrowth, it's better to have some kind of mechanism to deal with it, like climbing a tree, which I once did just in time not to be charged by two buffaloes.
GROSS: Well, you just described a close call. Were you ever harmed?
GOODALL: No. I never was actually harmed until quite recently. We have one chimp who's a bully, Fifi's son Frodo. And he just loves - he's not trying to actually really hurt or kill anyone, but because the ground is so rugged and rocky, if he knocks you over and drags you and stamps on you, you can get a little bit hurt. And I did.
GROSS: What did he do to you?
GOODALL: Well, he knocked me over, and then he stamped on me, and then he charged away. And then - which he does to lots of people. But for some reason, he charged back twice more and stamped and dragged and sort of cracked open - well, not cracked open my head, but I was - had a bleeding cut where he'd hit my head on a rock and a damaged ankle. So I try to avoid Frodo. You know, he is potentially dangerous. He's 130 pounds. The biggest chimp we've had there. He's the top-ranking male now, and he is huge.
GROSS: Well, you know, if it's a person, you could try to work things out verbally even after to reach some kind of verbal apology or agreement, which you can't do with the chimpanzee. Are you, you know, angry with him the way you would be with a person, or do you feel like, well, it's chimp behavior, and you're there to observe it, and you just accept this?
GOODALL: Well, theoretically, I think it's just chimp behavior. I must accept it. But actually, you know, chimps are so like people. I actually get pretty mad at him. It's just, you can't help it. You feel you're dealing with a whole lot of people, actually.
GROSS: Well...
GOODALL: So, yeah, I get mad at him, and I try to avoid him.
GROSS: Has this incident changed your behavior around the chimps or how close you'll go to them, or is it just changing your behavior around this one chimp?
GOODALL: Yeah, it's just the one. I mean, the others are just the same wonderful chimps they always have been. And I think if I was there all the time, this problem would go away. I think it's because I disappear for so long, and there is something in the chimps' makeup that even if it's another chimp, a long separation is likely to lead to aggression when those - when the two chimps meet again.
GROSS: A lot of scientists have seen humans as the only animal that uses tools. And you basically saw a chimp working with a tool. What was the tool?
GOODALL: Yeah, that's right. And not only using it as a tool but actually making tools, which is the real breakthrough. It was a piece of grass, and it was being used by a chimpanzee whom I'd named David Greybeard who was the first to lose his fear of me. And when I saw him squatting on this termite mound and using this piece of grass as a tool, and then picking a leafy twig and stripping the leaves off, thus making the object suitable to fish for termites, I mean, it was - I actually was so excited. I couldn't believe it. And I wouldn't let myself get too worked up until I'd actually seen it again on another day because it seemed so unlikely. And I didn't have a very clear view. I was sort of hidden in the vegetation. But anyway, it was real.
GROSS: So describe a little bit more how he was using this grass as a tool.
GOODALL: Well, the termites make a mound. There are a lot of different kinds of termites, and these make large, very, very hard earth compacted by their own saliva. And they're reddish colored. And at a certain time of year, the winged termites fly out and the worker termites make passages up to the surface of these nests - these very hard nests. And so David would pick a piece of grass, carefully push it into one of these tunnels, wait for a moment, pull it out very, very carefully, and there would usually be termites biting on. And he would then pick them off with his lips and crunch them up.
GROSS: So when you described this to Louis Leakey, what was his reaction?
GOODALL: Now, we must redefine man, redefine tool or accept chimpanzees as humans.
GROSS: And so which did you end up doing? Redefining...
GOODALL: Well, I...
GROSS: ...Tool, man or accept chimps as human?
GOODALL: I think - you know, it - I didn't really pay any attention to that. I didn't do anything. I think what's fascinating is every time somebody discovers an animal doing something that we used to think was unique to us, there is this scientific uproar because we have to keep our uniqueness. And, of course, the chimps have challenged this belief again and again and again. There are all kinds of intellectual performances we used to think unique to us - abstraction, generalization, understanding and using abstract symbols. Things like this that they can - they've been shown to do, especially some of the careful work in captive situations. And because of this, and because of all the similarities in emotion, happiness, sadness, fear, because of the fact they have such very vivid personalities, they've really helped so much to blur the line that used to be perceived as sharp, dividing humans on the one hand from the rest of the animal kingdom on the other. And it sort of gives you a new humility. We're different, yes. We're unique, yes, but not as different as we used to think.
DAVIES: Jane Goodall speaking with Terry Gross in 1999. We'll hear more of their conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. And today, we're remembering Jane Goodall, known for her groundbreaking study of the behavior of chimpanzees and her work to conserve their habitats. Terry spoke to Goodall in 1999 when she'd published her book, "Reason For Hope," about her years in the wild.
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GROSS: You raised a child during your research in the forest in Tanzania. Was your approach to mothering affected by watching chimps mother their babies?
GOODALL: Well, I think it was. I mean, I consciously thought that what I'd learned from watching the chimpanzee mothers was very appropriate for raising a human child. I think one of the things that I've learned that's really significant in relation to raising human children is that there are very different kinds of mothering in the wild. We find good mothers and bad mothers. And the good mother will be attentive, protective, tolerant, playful, affectionate, and above all, supportive. And the mother who is on the poorer end of the scale tends to be rather harsh or cold in her treatment of the baby, to be less supportive, less affectionate, less tolerant and much less playful.
And it does seem that these maternal characteristics, along with the kind of family into which the infant is born, in other words, the whole early experience, has a tremendous influence on the type of chimpanzee that infant will become. And we find that those with the good, supportive mothers tend to be assertive, successful. They have relaxed relationships with other adults. Whereas those that have the colder, less supportive mothers tend to grow up being rather nervous, finding it difficult to relate well to other adults and usually being rather low ranking on the dominance scale. So if this early experience is so important for chimps, is it perhaps also for humans? And I believe that it is, and I think there's a growing body of scientific data to suggest that that's so.
GROSS: So did you try to be extra supportive, tolerant and playful with your child?
GOODALL: Yeah. And I also spent, you know, for the first three years, I basically was with him all the time. And people have said, oh, well, you're so lucky. You could do your research and stay with your child. But in fact, because I made this conscious decision to spend time with him because I felt it was important, that meant that I actually stopped following the chimps. I just occasionally walked up to look at them, but then I'd go back and spend time with my son. And the funny thing is that even if I hadn't observed the chimps, I probably would've brought my son up in much the same way because my mother treated us very much like the old female Flo treated her young. So I don't know.
GROSS: So did you have researchers who were observing the chimps during those years when you were spending most of your time with your child?
GOODALL: Oh, yeah. By that time, we'd built up the research station, which, of course, is still very dynamic and alive today. So we're actually approaching our 40th year of research. It's the longest unbroken study of any group of wild animals in the world. And the wonderful thing is, we have one chimpanzee, Fifi, Flo's daughter, who was a small infant when I began in 1960. And she's the only one still alive today from those early years. But, you know, I can go back to Gombe, look into her eyes, and I know that there are certain memories that she and I share from those early years.
GROSS: I want to get back to being a mother in the wild. Did you have to protect your baby from the chimps?
GOODALL: Oh, absolutely. Chimps are meat eaters. And they have been known to take human infants for food, including at Gombe. Well, at least in that part of - it was before it became a park, actually. And so it was very, very important to keep Grub, as we called him, away from the chimps and to always have someone with him. And that was why, while he was sort of 2 and 3, I actually spent much, much less time at Gombe and more time with Hugo, my ex-husband, on the Serengeti, which was a sort of healthier and safer environment for a small toddling child.
GROSS: It must've changed your feelings about the chimps, too, knowing that they were a potential enemy.
GOODALL: It was very disturbing to think that these wonderful chimpanzees might harm my baby, my precious baby, because up until that time I had thought that, although chimps were very like us in so many ways, that they were rather nicer. And it was even more shocking to find, and this was when my son was already about 5 years old, to find that they were capable of extreme brutality, of cannibalism and of a behavior that's very similar to primitive human warfare.
GROSS: Some of your most important findings from your research of chimps in the wild has to do with chimpanzee violence and how some chimpanzees may attack chimps of neighboring communities. Could you talk a little bit about what you found were possible motivations for these attacks?
GOODALL: We believe that the really serious attacks on members of a neighboring community are due to a sort of territorial dispute. We find that they're very aggressively territorial and that groups of males will patrol the boundaries of their territory. And they appear to be searching for sight or sound of neighbors. And that the males of a community, any number from four to 10, depending on the size of the community at the time, will actually enlarge their territory at the expense of a weaker neighbor. So it's not only protecting their territory for their females and young, but an active warfare, almost, to increase their own territory.
GROSS: Yeah, you compare some of this hostile chimp behavior to primitive warfare. In what way are they similar?
GOODALL: We had one period at Gombe which was, I think, the darkest period in Gombe's history, which we refer to as the Four-Year War. And it happened after the main study group had divided. And there was a period when there was a sort of no-man's-land between the two communities' newly established rangers. And then the males of the larger community, the Kasakela community, began going on raids into the heart of the land that had been taken over by the splinter group that moved off to the south. And if they encountered an individual on his or her own, they would give chase. It was almost like a hunt. And once they captured such an individual, they would subject him or her to a really, really brutal and sustained attack.
Nothing like that happens within a community. This is very special to intercommunity interactions. And the chimps, particularly the young males, appeared to enjoy this kind of conflict. And a young male will actually go back into a danger zone and peer at the enemies. So they also show patterns when they attack strangers that they never show during intracommunity fighting, that's fighting within their community, such as bending or twisting a limb round and round, drinking blood, tearing the skin, the sort of thing you see when they're trying to kill an adult prey animal.
GROSS: Has your research led you to make any connections between chimp and human violence?
GOODALL: Yes. It suggests, if we believe in Darwinian evolution, if we believe, as Louis did and I do, that at one time we shared a common ancestor, then it seems fairly clear that we have inherited certain violent tendencies from our ancient primate ancestors. But I've been criticized for publishing some of these violent episodes because there are scientists who have argued that if I publish them, then there will be those who try to make use of those observations to imply that we are a violent species and war is inevitable.
And I believe that we have quite a strong free will and that we are able to choose the direction we go. We don't have to go around being violent, and in fact, most people don't. Most people are quite disciplined. And we have to also remember that equally deeply rooted in our primate heritage are compassion, love and altruism, because we find wonderful examples of these qualities in the chimps that we've studied.
GROSS: Just one more thing. We only have a few seconds. You say that, you know, you really do love people. Do a lot of people assume that since you've spent so much time in the wild, often alone, studying chimps that maybe you're antisocial?
GOODALL: Some people do feel that. And they say, which do I like best, chimps or people? And I say, well, chimps are so like us that I like some people much more than some chimps, and some chimps much more than some people.
GROSS: Oh, great answer.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Jane Goodall, thank you so much for talking with us.
GOODALL: Thank you.
DAVIES: Jane Goodall speaking with Terry Gross in 1999. Goodall died last week at the age of 91. Coming up, our critic-at-large John Powers reviews the new film "A House Of Dynamite," by Kathryn Bigelow, who made "The Hurt Locker." This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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