10/02/2025
Jane Goodall died today—I worked thru tears after seeing the headlines. She did so much good in her 91 years for chimps, for humanity and the world. In my humble option she is simply one of the greatest human beings to ever walk this earth.
National Geographic Magazine (and the tv specials) was a staple in our household growing up. Those magazines were prized possessions to be shared, collated, and then carefully catalogued. They were shared from my Grandparents, then my parents, then me. I remember seeing all the very alpha male type scientists, adventurers, and researchers that graced the pages, deep in the jungles of the Amazon, in the vast deserts of the Sahara, chopping down vegetation to reveal a new Mayan pyramid...but the ones that meant the most to me, the ones that impacted me were the Leakey Girls. 3 Young women who were chosen by Louis and Mary Leakey, imminent physical anthropologists, as an experiment to go into the wilds to study the behaviors of the great apes. Jane Goodall chose chimpanzee’s, Dian Fossey chose the mountain gorilla, and Birute Galdikas, the youngest of the gals chose Orangutans.
Watching Jane Goodall, a young, gracile blonde proper English schoolgirl who would have been better placed in an English garden with bone china cup of tea, picking her way thru the jungle following chimpanzees gave me the hope that one day I too would follow in her footsteps and get to study these magnificent creatures. She discovered things no one ever imagined about chimp behavior, tool use, familial bonds, hunting behaviors, and so very much more. She didn’t know it then but not was she teaching us about chimps, and new ways to do research, she taught generations of girls that they too could do what had always been "men's" science.
Dian Fossey was unalived in her prime at her Karisoke research center for protecting her precious mountain gorillas. Her institute still stands as a testament to her work in research and conservation.
Now, that our beloved Jane is gone, Birute Galdikas is the last of the Leakey Gals left to carry the torch for these amazing groundbreaking innovative women, the great apes they research and protect, and millions of girls who want to follow them down the unbeaten path.
Jane was the first. Most everyone now remembers her as that graceful English lady with long silver white hair who advocates for animals, always got the better of Johnny Carson, and was a staunch believer in conservation, animal rights, people’s rights, and peace. But the image that always comes to mind for me first is delicate the blonde girl, barely a woman tramping thru the jungles of Africa, following familial groups of chimps. Those chimps were her prized subjects, that she researched, collated data on, catalogued and then shared her knowledge with all of us.
I could continue discussing what she and the other Leakey Gals meant to me as a child and as a woman. I planned to follow in their footsteps but at that time I finished my bachelor degree, the Rwanda war was in full swing, and it seemed the entire continent of Africa was in upheaval and there was no university willing to send a female graduate/phd student into that turmoil. So, I put off going to Graduate School at that time and ultimately life had other plans for me. So I worked with animals in different ways. First volunteering with gibbons at the Hattiesburg Zoo and over the past 28 years, I’ve devoted my life to my own family of critters and those at Forest Hill Animal Hospital. My parents and grandparents instilled in me my love of animals, Jane showed me that it could be a career.
Carla Garth
