WOMEN IN CONSERVATION

            Jane Morris Goodall, the only woman on this list who is still alive, is a primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and United Nations Messenger of Peace. She has spent 55 years studying wild chimpanzees in Tanzania and continues her research today. Her inspiration came from a lifelike monkey toy her father gave to her when she was 2 years old. Her career began in 1957 when she moved from Europe to a friend’s farm in Kenya. The next year, she made contact with a Kenyan archaeologist who sent her to Tanzania to do research (McKie). With no prior education, she was admitted to graduate school at Cambridge in 1962 where she received her Ph.D., making her the 8th person to do so without a Bachelor’s degree. It may be because of this lack of education that she conducted her research in unusual ways that went against normal protocol. For example, she has received a lot of criticism for naming the chimpanzees she studied as opposed to assigning them numbers. Her research findings have suggested far more similarities between chimps and humans than ever previously thought, such as their establishment of communities, families, and emotions. In 1977, she established the Jane Goodall Institute, an international conservation and development programs in Africa. She currently travels around 300 days each year to give lectures and conduct research (Quammen).