Four decades ago, a leading zoologist dismissed Jane Goodall as anamateur. She agreed. “My future is so ridiculous,” she wrote. “I justsquat here, chimp-like, on my rocks, pulling out prickles & thorns,and laugh to think of this unknown ‘Miss Goodall’ who is said to bedoing scientific research somewhere.”

But within a few months of beginning her study of chimpanzees in1960, insinuating herself into their lives in the forests of Africa,she made a shocking discovery: Chimpanzees construct tools. Legendaryanthropologist Louis Leakey announced that because of Goodall’sobservations, “we must redefine tool, redefine man, or acceptchimpanzees as human.” She soon gained entrance to a doctoral programat Cambridge University, even though her highest previous degree wasfrom a secretarial school, and was well on her way to becoming ascientific icon.

To this slim, ponytailed young woman, chimps looked more clever,more scary, and often more human than anyone had ever suspected. Theyhunt, sometimes engage in cannibalism, make war on each other, adoptorphans, and drum on tree roots and wave branches in ritual-likedisplays. Some chimps are cunning politicians; others seem devoted totheir families.

Fame and age have broadened Goodall’s focus. These days she spendsmost of her time on the road, lecturing and raising funds for the JaneGoodall Institute (check their blog) and its efforts to assist wild and rescuedchimpanzees. But she still keeps close tabs on her adopted family, theAfrican primates who took her in.

When you arrived in Africa, did you imagine you’d be spending 47 years involved with chimpanzees?
No [laughs]. How could I have back then? One year there seemedenormous at the time. I was only 23. I was invited to Africa by aschool friend whose parents had moved to Kenya. One of their friendssaid, “If you’re interested in animals, you should meet Dr. LouisLeakey.” So I went to see him at the Coryndon Museum [where Leakey wasdirector], and he ended up offering me a job as his secretary. Duringthe time I worked for him, I had the opportunity to go out on theSerengeti with him. He knew I didn’t care about clothes and hair,dresses and parties, and that I really, really, really wanted to livewith animals in the bush. And that I didn’t care about a degree—I justwanted to learn.

What is your fondest memory of observing the chimps in Tanzania?
When I would sit quietly with a family and watch the interactionsbetween mother and child, brothers and sisters. Yes, it was amazing tosee tool use for the first time, but it didn’t really surprise me thatthey could do that. I hadn’t been to college and didn’t realize howexciting this observation was. Ironically, about three weeks after[field biologist] George Schaller visited me for the first time, I saw[chimpanzee] David Greybeard using a tool. George had said during hisvisit to my camp, “If you see tool using and hunting, it will have madethe whole study worthwhile.” Within a month, I’d seen both.

Watching the chimpanzees, did you ever long to be one?
Sometimes I did, especially in the early days when it was just meand the chimps and the forest. I just wanted to know what they werethinking and feeling, and what it felt like in the evening to be makinga nest, and what it felt like to be a female when a big male comesthundering in. Are you afraid or excited? It was impossible to tell.

Did you immediately recognize distinctive personalities among the chimpanzees?
It took a long time before they lost their fear of me. But as I gotto know them and watched them interact, their personalities became veryobvious. There were mean ones and generous ones, aggressive ones andgentle ones.

To many people, you are the scientist who made chimps seem almost human. Is that how they appear to you?
They kiss, embrace, hold hands, pat one another on the back,swagger, shake their fists, and throw rocks in the same context that wedo these things. There are strong bonds of affection and supportbetween family members. They help each other. And they have violent andbrutal aggression, even a kind of primitive war. In all these ways,they’re very like us.

Was the violence frightening? You were attacked once by a chimp named Frodo when you tried to help him.
Well, he was only being a young male. When they bash you, theyaren’t trying to hurt or kill you. If they were, I wouldn’t be here,because they are eight times stronger than me. So it’s just showingoff, just bravado. If he’s scaring off other chimps, then why not me?

If chimps are so much like us, why are they endangered while humans dominate the globe?
Well, in some ways we’re not successful at all. We’re destroying ourhome. That’s not a bit successful. Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutanshave been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest,living fantastic lives, never overpopulating, never destroying theforest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful thanus as far as being in harmony with the environment.

Yet they never evolved to our intellectual level. Why?
What makes us human, I think, is an ability to ask questions, aconsequence of our sophisticated spoken language. Chimps have somethinglike the beginning of morality, but once you have language—once you candiscuss something and talk about it in the abstract and take lessonsfrom the past and plan for the future—that is what makes the difference.