In 1960, she began studying chimpanzees, notebook
in handÂa long way from today's computers and
satellites. Jane Goodall reflects on 50 years of
primate research, and the cast of characters she grew to love.
I remember them all so, so well. Goliath, who
lost his alpha position when Mike, using his
superior intelligence, learned to enhance his
dominance displays by hitting and kicking empty
four-gallon tin cans ahead of him. William, the
clown, who once stole a blanket, dragged it up
the hillside, then draped it over his head and
felt around him like a child who has been blindfolded.
Is it really 50 years ago that I stepped ashore,
for the first of who knows how many hundreds of
times, onto the sandy beach of Gombe Stream
Chimpanzee Reserve, now Gombe National Park? Has
half a century passed since I saw, for the first
time, a wild chimpanzee feeding high in a palm
tree? It seems almost impossible to believe.
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