And happy 85th birthday today.
[CHEERING]
85, and you have been doing this for a long time.
And I mean, I've loved animals since I was a little kid.
But you loved animals and then really
immediately started working with them right away, right?
Well it was not that easy.
But I loved them when I was born.
I studied worms.
I saw the chickens.
I've studied all kinds of things.
I met Dr. Dolittle book when I was
eight, Tarzan when I was ten.
Of course, I fell in love with Tarzan.
Sure.
And what did he do?
He married the wrong Jane.
Right?
Anyway, that was when my dream began.
I will grow up, go to Africa, live with wild animals,
and write books about them.
You know, we weren't scientists in those days-- women.
And everybody laughed, except my mother.
And what she said to me is what I say to young people
around the world.
If your really want this, you have to work really hard,
take advantage of all opportunities,
but don't give up.
That's a good message to give to everyone, especially
young girls.
And it's amazing because so you were the first.
You went to study chimpanzees 1960.
Is that right?
That's correct.
And then Dian Fossey went with the gorillas in '67, I believe.
And then Biruté-- what's her name?
Galdikis.
And she studied orangutans.
That's right.
So it was three women who--
I mean, do you think there's a reason that they sent women
to do this?
Well, Leakey felt women made better observers.
And I think, you know, if you think back
over a woman's role in evolution,
we needed to be good mothers.
And for that, you need to be patient.
You need to understand the wants and needs
of a non-speaking little creatures.
And you really need to gauge the relationship between the family
members, so that little Tommy can be kept away from Uncle Joe
if uncle Joe is in a bad mood.
Right.
So when you were able to-- because you
can't do that anymore, where you can touch them and hold them.
I mean, I see--
I'm so jealous of that.
We're not allowed to do that.
But you actually interacted with these chimpanzees.
By the way, chimpanzees are the closest related to us.
They're 98%?
Well people differ.
98.6 is what I was told.
And then next come gorilla, and then orangutan.
Right and gorillas at 97, I think.
And then 96 for--
We're all very close.
Yes.
So I mean, it's amazing that chimpanzees are so close to us.
Explain to people why it's important to, first of all care
about animals and protect them, and what it does for our planet
and for us.
Well, for me, animals are, you know,
they're part of our world.
And just because we can destroy our world
and exterminate species for ourselves
doesn't mean that we should do it.
I don't think we have the right to do it.
And we look in books and see dinosaurs.
I don't want my great grandchildren
to only know chimps and gorillas and giraffes and elephants
from books.
And so, you know, we are destroying our own future.
Yeah, and I want more people to educate themselves and see
what we are destroying.
I mean, look at that.
So you still are able to.
But that's probably a place where you're
releasing that one, right?
Yes.
She's being released into a beautiful forested island.
And that embrace she gave me, I'd
never met her until that day.
It's just that she knew somehow.
Yeah, well of course.
I mean, they're so intelligent.
Look at it.
Just because she's thanking you, saying,
I'm going back into the--
Yes, I mean, that guy there who's been looking after her,
you know, he said, how does she know this lady is
responsible for all this?
Well, of course, the chimp didn't know that.
But I think there is a connection.
Yeah.
Well, it's amazing.
And I watched last night the penguins.
It's a Disney nature series, right?
You saw Steve.
You met Steve.
I saw Steve, and I have questions.
How do we know for sure we followed Steve the whole time?
They look exactly alike.
And that may have been Steve sometimes,
and it may have been another.
Possibly.
I wasn't on that shoot.
But they were there four whole years.
And you see the conditions.
I think it's incredible, the footage that they got.
If you get a chance--
You must see it.
And you show your children to see how incredible they are.
And that's the little baby.
And what they do, and how the fathers
take care of the babies and the eggs
as much as the mother does.
And it's incredible.
So hopefully, because really, they worked on it,
like you said, four years.
Four years.
And it starts on the 17th.
And the first week, all the money
goes to support penguin research through the wildlife
conservation network.
That's pretty amazing.
That is pretty amazing.
It's a fantastic-- I hope you watch it.
It's Disneynature's Penguins.
It opens in theaters April 17th.
And thank you so much for being here.
Thank you.
Dr. Jane Goodall.
We'll be back.