The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(49)

“So how did you tackle those professors?”

“Well, I didn’t argue—I just sort of quietly went on writing about the chimps as they are, showing the film that Hugo had taken at Gombe, inviting my supervisor to Gombe. What with all my firsthand observations along with Hugo’s fantastic film, and the facts about their biological similarity to us that had emerged—well, most scientists gradually stopped criticizing my unorthodox attitude. Again, I’m pretty obstinate and I don’t give up easily!”

I thought about that victory—which is now considered to have played a key role in changing our relationship with animals.

“Anyway”—Jane interrupted my thoughts—“as you know, I got my Ph.D. and went back to Gombe and would happily have stayed there forever, but of course that all changed when I attended that 1986 conference and had my Damascus moment.”

“What happened after that?” I asked.

“Well, the first thing I decided to tackle was the nightmare of chimpanzees in medical research.”

“Jane,” I said, “did you really think you could do anything to help the chimps in those labs? Did you really think you could stand up to the medical research establishment?”

Jane laughed. “Probably if I’d really thought it through I would never have tried. But having seen those videos of the chimps in the labs—well, I was so upset and angry that I just knew I had to try. For the sake of the chimps.

“The worst part was forcing myself to actually go into a lab to see what it was like with my own eyes. I don’t think you can tackle any problem without some firsthand knowledge. Goodness, how I dreaded being in the presence of intelligent social beings who were confined, alone, in five-foot-by-five-foot cages. In the end I went to several labs, but my first visit was the hardest. Mum knew how I felt, and she sent a letter enclosing a card on which she had written a couple of Churchill’s quotes. And, amazingly, driving to the lab we passed the British Embassy with the statue of Churchill making his famous V for Victory sign. It was like a message from the past. Once again that inspiring wartime leader was there to give courage when I so desperately needed it.”


A juvenile in a research lab, far gone in depression. Note the size of the cage. (LINDA KOEBNER)




Me visiting a chimp in one of the lab prisons. (SUSAN FARLEY)



“How did it go once you got there?”

“The visit was even more heartbreaking than I expected—and it made me even more determined to do all I could to help those poor prisoners,” Jane said. “I decided to use similar tactics to those I used with the Cambridge scientists—I talked about the behavior of the Gombe chimps and showed them films. I truly believe that a lot of what I perceive as deliberate cruelty is based on ignorance. I wanted to touch their hearts—and for some of them, anyway, it worked. We had meetings; they invited me to give talks to their staff; and they agreed to at least allow me to send in a student to introduce ‘enrichment’ into some of the labs. Something to alleviate the desperate boredom of an intelligent being in a bare cell, alone and with nothing to help pass the monotonous days—except times of fear and pain resulting from invasive protocols.

“It’s been a long, hard fight with many individuals and groups helping, but finally chimpanzee medical research, so far as I know, has ended. And though my fight was on ethical consideration, the final decision that affected the approximately four hundred chimpanzees owned by NIH in America was made when a team of scientists found that none of the work being done was truly beneficial to human health.”

I was aware that this was the first of many battles Jane threw herself into over the years, but I asked her how she went on to attack the enormous challenges that faced her beloved chimpanzees in Africa.





Challenges in Africa



“So after many years you and others who joined the fight won that battle. But at the same time you were trying to do something about the situation in Africa, right? Wasn’t that even more difficult? Did you really think you could make a difference?”

“Oh, Doug! I really didn’t know if I could! It was after that conference in 1986, the one where I saw the secretly filmed footage of chimps in labs. I didn’t see how I could help them, but, as I told you, I knew I had to try. And at the same conference we had a session on conservation—and it was shocking. Images from across Africa of forests destroyed, horror stories of chimps shot for bushmeat and infants snatched from their dead mothers to sell, and evidence of a drastic decline in numbers of chimpanzees wherever they were being studied. Again, I just knew I had to do something. I didn’t know what or how—only that just doing nothing was not an option.

“And again I felt I had to go and see some of what was going on in Africa for myself. So I got enough money to visit six of the countries where wild chimpanzees were being studied. And one of the first challenges was the number of orphan infants whose mothers had been shot for bushmeat. Often the infants were sold in local markets as pets. It was illegal, but people had other problems to worry about—and corruption was rife.

“I shall never forget the first of these orphans that I saw. He was about a year and a half old, tied up on top of a tiny wire cage with a piece of rope. Surrounded by tall laughing Congolese. Curled up on his side, eyes blank, staring into nothing. But when I went close and gave the soft chimpanzee greeting sound, he sat up and reached a hand toward me, looking into my eyes.