Jane Goodall

one of the best of us

I never met Jane Goodall, and now I never will. We were once in the same room when she was giving a talk - but she was surrounded by young people at the end and I felt the potential benefit they would get was worth stepping away for … Now this is not a case of ‘never meet your heroes’ because everything I had heard and read about Jane, suggested I would not be disappointed. I also thought, the opportunity will pop along, because clearly, she is immortal.

So why is her death, at the age of 91, here on the hedgehog update? Because without her I would not be doing this today.

When I was young I wanted to be a vet - I had read all the books by James Herriot and was determined - I was born loving animals and this seemed like the logical path to take. And then I found out you had to be clever and really good at exams.

Next plan was the result of reading the work of Jacques Cousteau - and marine biology was my goal. But the water around Bangor in North Wales looked cold!

And then I read ‘In the Shadow of Man’ and my world was changed. Her study of chimpanzees was so very different to other work I had read - she did outrageous things like give them names and comment on their personality. This caused rumblings of disgruntlement in the academic world, but sent ripples into the wider world.

One of the many important things she did was challenge human exceptionalism - proving that chimps used, and more importantly, made, tools … previously thought to be something that only humans could do.

When you consider the concept of ‘animal rights’ you have to think about what makes an animal … oh, the philosophy I read, and philosophers I met, and partially understood when writing Cull of the Wild was so much about this.

We are animals - clearly. So what marks us out as ‘special’? Why should we feel that we can do what we will to everyone else on the planet? Is it just a case of ‘might is right’? Well, that is at the heart of fascism, so maybe we need a wiser approach.

Jane’s observations forced a fundamental rethink of boundaries.

But she was also an innovative ethologist - studying the behaviour of the animals around her. And a powerful advocate for the rights of her beloved chimpanzees to survive and thrive, and with that the understanding they have no chance without an environment to support them.

What about the hedgehogs? Sorry - I do feel really quite emotional about her demise - even though she talked so openly about her ‘next big adventure’ coming after death.

Well, when I read her work I was introduced to more than just the idea of studying ecology and behaviour - but the importance of telling stories about that work - about spreading it beyond the confines of scientific journals. So, along with the support of Pat Morris, who got me radio tracking hedgehogs, and Roz Kidman Cox, then editor of the BBC Wildlife Magazine, who commissioned me to write my first ever article, well, I felt emboldened.

The act of writing that first article, about hedgehogs, of course, was the stepping stone into campaigning for them - that work lead me to helping stop the cull of hedgehogs in the Uists, and becoming, for a while, a trustee of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, and then, as I am still now, their spokesperson. All the way I have realised that telling the story is as important as doing the work - a key lesson from Jane.

She was tireless - I heard one person say that she was travelling around 300 days a year, going to meetings and sharing her love for the natural world. She used chimpanzees. On a much smaller platform, I use hedgehogs. They are both ways of getting people to stop, think, and hopefully start to care.

She was a firm believer in the idea behind the phrase I use (too) often … ‘we will not fight to save what we do not love’ … this idea, from Stephen Jay Gould, I built on when writing The Beauty in the Beast - were I added ‘we will not love what we do not know’ … communication is so important. We need the storytellers to help model a better world. Jane was one of the best. And I will never meet her.