Wednesday, July 14, the day we arrived in Houston with chimpanzees, was also the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Jane Goodall’s research at Gombe. This 50 year anniversary got me thinking about my first encounters with chimpanzees years ago at Sunset Zoo. I was just an intern but I was fascinated with chimpanzees Mac, Suzy, Rachel and Sesa and wanted desperately to be a chimpanzee keeper. Eager to learn more about chimps (and to impress my boss with my knowledge), I spent my lunch breaks reading Through a Window, caught up in the lives of Fifi and David Greybeard.
Fifi and Family - Michael Nichols, National Geographic
Like many other young women interested in primates, I was inspired by the work of Jane Goodall and dreamed of traveling to Africa and to study chimpanzees in the wild. Last weekend Jane Goodall wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal about those early years at Gombe and about how much things have changed. I did make it to east Africa eventually and found it really was the magical place she described. But unlike her, I couldn’t stay, my work was here at the zoo.
Sixteen years after I first opened Jane Goodall’s book I find myself responsible for 10 chimpanzees that now make their home at the Houston Zoo, which supports chimpanzee conservation all over Africa. I hope Dr. Goodall would approve.
