Jane Goodall has loved animals since she was a young girl. In fact, by the time she was two years old, she was so intrigued with horses, that she was learning to ride one! Jane's parents were also animal lovers and never discouraged her interest in animals.
During World War II, Jane's mother decided to move with her two daughters to another part of England to avoid the dangerous war zone of London at the time. They went to live with Jane's aunt in The Birches in a seacoast town called Bournemouth. She entered school there and did fine as a student. However, she could barely wait for the weekends to arrive so she could be outside all day long doing what she liked the best; climb a tree and listen to the birds, or go to the beach to watch the ocean.
Jane started to read every book that she could find about animals, and even decided that she wanted to study animals when she grew up. She thought that Africa would be a great place to go to do this studying.
Once Jane was college-aged, her family didn't have enough money to send her to college. So, she attended a secretarial school in London instead. She still dreamed of going to Africa someday to be amongst the wild animals, such as zebras and giraffes. Unfortunately, this trip would cost a lot of money, so Jane began to save her income.
Finally, Jane saved up enough money and headed to Africa when she was twenty-three. She had a toy chimp packed in her bag. In three weeks, Jane arrived in Nairobi. Jane was so excited to see the African wildlife, such as giraffes, zebras, elephants, and antelopes. She loved seeing the animals running about freely.
After a while, Jane met a man named Dr. Leakey. He gave Jane a job first as a secretary, then offered her a chance to go to the jungles of Tanzania to study some chimpanzees who had little contact with humans.
She arrived in the jungle and tried to get close to the chimps, but they kept running from her, no matter how quiet she remained. She wanted to get close to them so badly, that she would actually sleep in the forest. Jane decided to just watch the chimps and see what she could learn about them this way.
Jane made several major discoveries doing this. For example, she was the first to discover that chimps eat meat and are capable of using tools. She continued to learn and discover more about the chimps every day. This went on for many years.
Today, Jane travels to speak to many diverse groups of people. She has worked very hard to make sure people around the world are concerned about the well fare and treatment of animals. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research Education, and Conservation in 1975.
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