I thought chimps were like us only nicer... but we inherited our dark, evil side from them
y ran off. I was an intruder. I never thoughts of quitting. I should have all self respect if I’d given up.” ne began to fear that her funding uld stop, as she could not get close ugh to study the chimps in e detail. But slowly they an to accept her there. fter five months, older male t Jane med David ybeard ame the first to tolerate her. His behaviour would change the way humans saw the world.
Jane watched astonished as he stripped the leaves from a small twig and poked it into a termite mound to pull out insects to eat.
It challenged the belief at the time that humans were the only creatures to use hand-made tools. Some experts tried to dismiss Jane’s discovery as she With husband Hugo, left, and above with son Grub and grandson Nick was “a young, untrained girl”, but Dr Leakey saw the significance.
In a hasty telegram he wrote: “We must now redefine man or accept chimpanzees as human.”
Her findings did not stop there. She says: “At that time it was held by many scientists that only humans had minds and were capable of rational thought.
“Thankfully I had not been to university and did not know these things.
“Staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back at me. I felt very much that I was learning about fellow beings, capable of joy, sorrow, and jealousy.”
Jane’s growing team of researchers saw it first hand when the chimps led by David Greybeard began invading their camp to steal bananas. Fights broke out among the chimps as they scrambled for the food, until Jane was forced to devise a series of mechanical feeders to allow one chimp at a time to help themselves.
When Flo, the dominant female of the group, died of old age her youngest son Flint took to his nest and refused to eat. He grew weaker and died several weeks later, apparently of a broken heart.
Soon many of the chimps began spending more time away from the main group and their former family began to regard them as a rival clan.
It escalated into a war that lasted four years, ending only when the new group had been completely annihilated.
Jane says: “It was a very dark time for me. I thought they were like us, but nicer.
“I’d no idea of the brutality they could show. War always seemed to me to be a purely human behaviour. I’ve come to accept that the dark, evil side of human nature is deeply embedded in our genes, inherited from our primate ancestors.”
By the 1980s Jane realised she had to protect the chimps from the growing threat of extinction.
They had been ravaged by polio, a human disease initially passed to the apes in the south of the country.
Jane saved most of her chimp community by injecting them with a human vaccine. But from then on, direct contact with the chimps was strictly forbidden.
She has since been devoted to raising awareness of their declining numbers and raising money for conservation.
She says: “The role I must play is to ensure the next generation are better stewards than we have been.”
■ Jane premieres on the National Geographic Channel tonight at 9pm.