A Voice for the Endangered

Jane Goodall, the internationally known researcher in chimpanzee behavior who now devotes much of her time to educating youth around the world about environmental matters, was in her element Monday.

Behind her, dozens of playful apes climbed and swung inside a revamped Los Angeles Zoo chimpanzee penthouse.

Before her, about 75 elementary school students cheered the 64-year-old English ethologist with the energy more commonly reserved for a rock star.

Goodall, on one of her rare visits to Los Angeles, unveiled a local version of her “Roots and Shoots” program.

An international environmental and humanitarian curriculum, Roots and Shoots is administered by the Jane Goodall Institute. She started the program seven years ago as a simple gathering of children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania--Los Angeles’ sister city.

Roots and Shoots programs have since been formed by schools and youth organizations in 38 American states and 30 countries--including China and Taiwan. They promote awareness of endangered species, slower population growth and responsible use of the Earth’s resources.

Organizations that brought Roots and Shoots to Los Angeles--including the L.A. Zoo, Los Angeles Police Department, USC, UCLA and Wildlife on Wheels--prepared an instructional aid and other information that groups may use to begin a program.

“There’s a spirit moving around the world,” said Goodall as she moved through the zoo, surrounded by children and adults begging for autographs. “People are getting tired of the greedy society.”

The spirit seemed alive and well Monday in Southern California.

“Animals are getting killed away . . . we should be more careful about it,” said Jenna Driscoll, 10, a fifth-grader from Poinsettia School in Ventura.

“This was a chance to meet her,” she said after getting a book autographed. “Now I have the memory locked in my mind.”

During a series of talks at the zoo, Goodall answered questions from children and adults--ranging from what sparked her interest in chimps to whether the creatures have feelings.

Goodall was born in London on April 3, 1934. As a young girl, she said, she watched an episode of “Tarzan” and fell in love with the jungle, the animals and Tarzan himself.

“I thought Jane was a wimp,” she said to a laughing crowd. “I thought I could make a better mate.”

When she was old enough, she got a job as a waitress and began saving her earnings for a visit to Africa.

Goodall earned her PhD from Cambridge University. Her formal research of animal behavior--particularly chimpanzees--started in 1960 in what is now Gombe Stream National Park in northwestern Tanzania.

Before her research, scientists believed that chimpanzees ate mainly fruits and vegetables and occasionally insects and small rodents.

Through close contact over the years, Goodall discovered they also hunt and eat larger animals, such as young monkeys and pigs. They make and use tools more than any other animals, aside from humans, and have a complex system of communication.

She explained how chimpanzee gestures and sounds express anger, joy and other emotions. With her own screams, she demonstrated the “panthoot,” or chimp greeting.

“Chimps have a great sense of humor,” she said. “They can be taught the [gestures] of American sign language.”

Goodall interspersed her humorous demonstrations of ape behavior with heartfelt speeches about deforestation, world overpopulation and the slaughter of endangered and other animals in Africa.

“They are being hunted for food and for the live trade,” she said. Many adult female chimps are killed and the babies stolen to be sold.

Attitudes toward animals have changed for the better in her nearly four decades of work with chimpanzees, she said. But much remains to be done, not only in the treatment of animals, but also in the education of people around the globe about taking care of the Earth’s resources.

“We need to empower people, especially the woman,” she said, noting that historically the better educated women become, the fewer children they bear.

Using traditional Roots and Shoots instruction, Goodall also spoke to about 70 students at North Hollywood High Zoo Magnet at Griffith Park about environmentally friendly practices, such as recycling.

“What is really important to you is how we proceed from here on,” she said.

Her visit to the magnet school was as welcome as one of a professional sports star to a sports camp.

“I can’t explain it,” said junior Karin Kane, 16, about meeting the woman she called a role model. “It was amazing.”