Continue on page 30
THE CATALYST
BP: Throughout the years and throughout your encounters with wildlife animals, which emotions runs through your veins and surfaces the most? And would you say that a specific emotion has been the catalyst for your life’s work?
JG: Initially what brought me to Africa was the desire to live with and write books about wild animals, and it was a true love of animals, and curiosity about their lives, that kept me going. And a gradually increasing love of and respect for the forest. And then it was absolute dismay to realize, in 1986, that across their range chimpanzees are diminishing in number, forest are vanishing, and there is hunting. At the same time I saw secretly filmed footage of chimps in medical research labs, and the cruel methods used by circus trainers, and the total disrespect shown by those having “pet” chimpanzees.
YOUR REACH
BP: Your voice, your educational efforts, and your utter devotion have made you one of the most prominent figures and advocates for chimps and for the protection of their habitat. What is next for you in your ongoing advocacy?
JG: There is so much to do to make this a better world. The next steps will be following the same trail, trying to change attitudes around the world, trying to convince every person to make a difference every day – and have a choice as to what kind of difference. Growing our youth program, Roots & Shoots, and building an endowment so that the work may go on when I am gone, are high on the list.
A CHIMP NAMED DAVID GREYBEARD
BP: You are the first researcher to have given names to chimps. Tell us the story behind a chimp named David Greybeard.
JG: David Greybeard was the first of the Gombe chimpanzees to lose his fear of me. He is a chimpanzee who was sometimes seen by the fishermen along the beach, feeding in trees above their huts. He came into my camp to feed on oil palm nuts when they ripened – found and consumed some bananas. I always climbed the mountains before sunrise every day, and returned just at the end of daylight. Anyway, my cook reported that David came for the bananas. And after several days, I decided to stay down, hoping he would come again. He did! And because we went on leaving out a few bananas, other chimpanzees followed him sometimes. He was not a high ranking male, but he was calm, determined and a good leader. One day he took a banana from my hand. It was a breakthrough. He was the first chimpanzee to take a banana from my hand. The first to let me groom him, and follow him.