Goodall, Fossey & Galdikas: Great Minds

today we know that humans and chimps share 99% of their DNA and that we have a lot in common not just how we look but how we behave form groups defend our turf and love each other but people didn't always see other primates this way for a long time the world had a very King Kong a view of them like they were all testosterone crazed angry apes but in the 1960s and 70s some amazing intrepid women came along and turned primatology on its hairy head Jane Goodall Dian Fossey and Beirut Agha Lucas are the definition of Awesome their studies on chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans respectively are some of the longest ongoing research of wild animal populations ever they've fought hard for conservation and habitat preservation and together they redefined the relationship between humans and primates [Music] Jane Goodall was born in London in 1934 and from a young age she professed an intense interest in animals while other little girls were brushing dolls in staging tea parties Goodall was reading Tarzan and dr. Dolittle and sneaking into chicken coops to see where eggs came from she dreamed of someday living among wild animals and was lucky to have an awesome mom who encouraged these pursuits at a time when a few ladies were involved in science when she was 23 Goodall joined a friend on a trip to Africa and there she met the famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey and his wife Mary at the time the Leakey's were pioneering the study of human origins strongly supporting darwin's assertion that human evolution began in africa and believing that the more we looked at the past the more we could learn about our connection to primates but little was known about wild ape behavior at the time Louis Leakey was impressed by Goodall's enthusiasm and energy so we took her on as an assistant and asked her to spearhead a new study on chimpanzees in Tanzania in the summer of 1960 she arrived at the study site in Gombe it took a while for the shy chimps to get used to her but soon enough Goodall was blowing minds with her discoveries like the chimps eat meat at that time everybody thought chimpanzees were vegetarians until one day she saw a chimp munching on a baby Bush Pig and sharing it with his lady friend a few weeks later Goodall observed something that was truly revolutionary she watched two chimps strip leaves off of stems and jam the stems into a termite nest pull them out and lick up the tasty termite treat this meant not only were primates using tools they were essentially making them as well until then anthropologists had defined humanity by its ability to make tools so when Goodall call-up Leakey and was like you're not gonna believe this Leakey famously responded now we must redefine tool redefine men or accept that chimpanzees are humans in other words this was a really really big deal in 1964 Goodall Married wildlife photographer Hugo van Loic who also happened to be a dutch baron and if you needed another reason to love her they'd nicknamed their son grub around that time Leakey pulled some strings and got her enrolled at Cambridge to get her PhD despite the fact that she did not have a university degree some of the stuffy tweed suited fellows give her a hard time especially for naming her subjects things like David Greybeard Fifi and Goliath but Goodall believed that the emotions complexities and personalities she saw in these chimps warranted more than just a number as it turns out the world agreed and became so captivated by what they saw through Goodall's eyes that some years later when a chimp named float died the London Times ran an obituary in 1965 Goodall co-founded the Gombe stream Research Center which is still running today eventually she and van LOM divorced and in 1976 she married Derick Bryson the director of Tanzania's national parks and a member of its parliament because of his leadership role Bryson was able to help protect the Gombe preserve until his death in 1980 basically Goodall and her colleagues blew the lid off primatology they saw a behavior that no one had documented before cooperation altruism sorrow joy cruelty and paved the way for primatologists like Dian Fossey well Goodall was getting established at Gombe Dian Fossey was spending her life savings trying to get to Africa born in San Francisco in 1932 Fauci had a much different childhood than Goodall alienated by her parents she grew up as a loner turning to animals be they goldfish or horses for love and acceptance her family wouldn't support her pursuit of a career in biology so she eventually received a bachelor's degree in occupational therapy and moved to Kentucky to work at a Children's Hospital for the next 10 years Fauci worked as a therapist with sick children and lived on a farm tending to livestock in her free time though she loved living on the farm and working with children it wasn't enough for her in 1963 Fauci borrowed a year's salary worth of funds and booked a seven week African trip that was where she first met the Leakey's and when she reportedly broke her ankle at their camp and puked on some fossils on the last stop of her trip she followed a tracker into the Ugandan jungle and saw a band of elusive mountain gorillas for the first time and she was hooked Fauci returned home paid off her debts published some articles in the local paper about her trip and bided her time when Leakey came to give a lecture Fauci tracked him down and was surprised to find that he remembered her probably because of the busted ankle and all the ralphing still he saw in Fauci something like what he'd seen in Goodall and though she had little expertise he asked her if she to come help study gorillas but he told her she had to have her appendix removed first as a precaution telling her tales of people who had died horrible deaths of appendicitis in the bush so she had the surgery only to be told later that Leakey suggested this mostly to gauge her determination ha well if it's a good one Louis yeah so in 1967 at age 35 Fauci headed to her field site in Rwanda soon she founded the karisoke II Research Center and was sleeping in a tiny tent eating canned food and spying on gorillas like Goodall she initially had a hard time getting close to her subjects then she started imitating their scratches and grunts chewing celery knuckle walking and acting like a submissive hairless albino ape live in the dream once these animals were used to her presence she could start to really observe them identifying individuals by their distinct nose prints a practice famous biologist George Schaller instituted a few years prior in his pilot gorillas study much like Goodall Fauci worried that she wouldn't be taken seriously until she had the proper credentials and she eventually earned her PhD from Cambridge under Goodall same adviser during it all she led a disastrous personal life littered with affairs hard-drinking pistol-packing and chain-smoking if nothing else the woman was passionate back at Karras okay her focus shifted from research to protection against poaching gorillas were often caught and killed in snares intended for other animals sometimes poachers kidnapped babies for the exotic pet trade and because adults will defend their families to the death the resulting carnage was often brutal gorilla heads hands and feet were even sold as grotesque trophies including his ashtrays the locals started calling Fauci the woman who lives alone on a mountain the name was fitting in more than one way Bosse had always been outspoken about poaching but in 1977 things got personal when her favorite gorilla digit with whom she'd shared a close bond for 10 years was killed and decapitated by poachers while trying to protect his family Fauci declared war she set up the digit fund to raise money for what she called her active conservation programs but soon took matters into her own hands destroying snares intimidating attacking and arresting some poachers allegedly holding cattle for ransom even burning down hunting camps she also opposed revenue generating tourism because she'd gorillas die from diseases transmitted by humans needless to say she didn't make a lot of local friends Fauci saw herself as a warrior protecting her family and whether you see this as admirable or misguided she was fearless and it eventually killed her in 1985 just after Christmas Fauci was brutally murdered by machete in her cabin there are many theories surrounding her murder but the case was never entirely solved her last journal entry read when you realize the value of all life you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future she's buried at Kara Sookie next to digit like Goodall and Fosse by route a galdikas loved animals from a young age as a girl she snuck around in the woods quietly observing wild animals doin their thing particularly curious about human evolution in the great apes she studied biology and psychology in college by 22 she was working on a master's in anthropology at UCLA when who should stroll into her life but you guessed it Louis Leakey with some solid street cred and admiration for Goodall and Fosse the ginger-haired garlic is convinced Leakey to help her get a study going on ginger-haired orangutan in Indonesian Borneo friends professors and haters at large told her that it couldn't be done that orangutans were too solitary too elusive and that they lived in nasty swamps and jungles too thick to walk through and that the isolation would drive her insane they didn't appreciate what can happen when you tell a really determined person not to do something they'll prove you wrong very wrong since arriving and I'm sorry I've had perhaps is wrong at 10 Jung putting reserve in Borneo galdikas and her colleagues have made over 100,000 hours of orangutan observations yes often while bleeding in thorn bushes in waist-deep and stinky leech infested swamps she has conducted one of the longest continuous studies of a wild animal population by a principal investigator in the world she also co-founded orangutan foundation international and helped raise countless orphan orangs she even made the heart-wrenching decision to send her three-year-old son binti to live with her father back in civilization because the kids only friends were young Apes and he was starting to identify as an orangutan galdikas was the first person to document orangutans strim endlessly long birth cycles so we now know that females typically have offspring only once every eight years and that the baby stay with their mothers for those eight years making the species extremely sensitive to extinction she discovered that orangutans sleep in tree nests sometimes 30 meters up eat over 400 different kinds of food and often drape large leaves over their backs like Poncho's in a rainstorm she also helped establish the concept that non-human animals can have culture too by observing over two dozen behaviors present in some around populations and not and others indicating these behaviors were passed down and learned through generations galdikas still spends much of her time at the reserve with her husband Borneo native pack bellhop she is the only non Indonesian recipient of that country's highest honor for environmental leadership in the end what Goodall Fosse and gala cos did was hold a fuzzy ap mirror up to humanity they showed us that we are not as special as we once thought and that many of our behaviors are not uniquely human our primate relatives are complex they are capable of cooperation and cruelty of sorrow happiness altruism and observation just like humans these people followed their hearts they thrived in some of the most remote difficult - dangerous wild places in the world they never gave up they brought something new and vital to the field asked different questions offered new perspectives traumatology has a far greater representation of women than many other sciences largely because of these women they helped pave the way for new generations of biologists and conservationists sadly in spite of their considerable efforts all of the animals they've studied are critically endangered their habitats are dwindling and extinction in the wild is a very real threat the image in the mirror isn't always pretty thanks for watching this episode of scishow if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for other great minds in science we should talk about you can find us on Facebook Twitter and of course down in the comments below and if you want to keep getting smarter with us here at scishow you can go to youtube.com/scishow and subscribe [Music]

Channel: SciShow

Views: 226,267

Keywords: scishow, science, research, jane goodall, dian fossey, birute galdikas, wild population, female, woman, scientist, louis leakey, human evolution, primate, primatology, behavior, ape, chimpanzee, gombe, anthropology, relationship, biology, mountain gorilla, rwanda, observation, conservation, poaching, digit, the digit fund, preservation, great apes, orangutan, indonesia, borneo, culture, endangered, extinction

Id: 0VRdDFwxwTg

Length: 11min 44sec (704 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2013