Jane Page #5

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treated as community members.

Instead, they were

treated as strangers.

Our idyllic world,

our little paradise, had

been turned upside down.

The once peaceful seeming

chimpanzees were heavily

engaged in what amounted to a

sort of primitive warfare.

The entire community that

moved south was annihilated.

It must have

been a very dark time for you.

It was a very,

very dark time, it was.

I thought they were like

us, but nicer than us.

I had no idea of the

brutality that they can show.

Took me awhile to come

to terms with that.

War had always seemed to me

to be a purely human behavior.

I had come to accept that the

dark and evil side of human

nature was deeply embedded in

our genes, inherited from our

ancient primate ancestors.

You and Hugo

had been in different places.

Did you feel yourselves

drifting apart?

-Well, you do drift apart

when you're in two different

places and you have

different goals in a way.

Hugo wasn't anymore

content with just

being at Gombe for me,

he needed to be in

the Serengeti for him.

Were you

struggling to try and keep

the marriage together?

-Well for Grub's sake, but

we'd begun bickering by then,

and so you have to weigh up,

you know, is it better to stay

together or to subject your

child to constant bickering's.

He wanted me to leave

Gombe, because there was no

way he could stay and work,

but I couldn't.

It was my life, and he had his.

During the trying time of my

divorce, it was all very sad.

Especially for Grub, for

he of course loved us both.

But I realized that my

experience in the forest

had given me perspective.

In the forest, death

is not hidden; it's all

around you, all the time.

A part of the endless

cycle of life.

Chimpanzees are born,

they grow older, they

get sick, and they die.

And always there are the

young ones that carry on

the life of the species.

Louis Leakey sent me to Gombe

with the hope that a better

understanding of chimpanzee

behavior might provide us

with a window on our past.

Our study of the chimpanzees

had helped to pinpoint not

only the similarities between

them and us, but also

those ways in which

we are most different.

Admittedly, we're not the only

beings with personalities,

reasoning powers, altruism,

and emotions, nor are we the

only beings capable of mental

as well as physical suffering.

But our intellect has grown

mightily in complexity since

the first true men branched

off from the ape men's stalk

some two million years ago.

And we, and only we, have

developed a sophisticated

spoken language.

For the first time in

evolution, a species evolved

that was able to teach its

young about objects

and events not present,

to pass on wisdom gleaned

from the successes and

the mistakes of the past.

With language we can ask

as can no other living being,

those questions about who we

are and why we are here.

And this highly developed

intellect means surely, that

we have a responsibility

towards the other life forms

of our planet, whose continued

existence is threatened by the

thoughtless behavior of

our own human species.

My life, the time, was perfect.

I was spending

time in the field,

I was writing a book,

I had students so the

research was secure and

I could be with my son.

Who's my life for

the rest of my life?

It was better than

anything I dreamed of.

But I knew that

the chimpanzees across

Africa were disappearing.

So that's when I realized that

I had to raise awareness about

the plight of chimps in Africa

and the role that I must

play is to make sure that

the next generation are

better stewards than we've been.

And I needed to take that

message to the world.

And since that time, which

was October 1986, I haven't

been more than three weeks

consecutively in any one place.

When I look back over my

life, it seems I've been

extraordinarily lucky.

Although as my mother

Vanne always says, luck

was only part of the story.

She's always believed

that success comes through

determination and hard work

and that the fault is not

in our stars, but in ourselves

that we are underlings.

I certainly believe that's true.

Yet though I had worked hard

all my life, I must admit

that the stars seemed to have

played their part too.

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