QUESTION
(1) Explain where, when and how each of the
Trimates started their conservation work
(2) Elaborate on the most challenging
conservation problem each of them faced
(3)
Explain what they did or are doing to overcome their respective problems
(4)
Which of the Trimates do you find most inspiring and why?
ANSWER
1) Jane Goddal, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas
have been named as The Trimates or Leakey’s Angels as they each have been sent
by Dr Leakey to study a primate each. Jane Goodall were in charge of the
chimpanzees, Dian Fossey, the gorillas, and Birutė Galdikas, the orangutans.
Goodall started her conservation work at Africa
where Goodall had always been passionate about animals and Africa, which
brought her to the farm of a friend in the Kenya highlands in 1957.From there,
she obtained work as a secretary, and acting on her friend's advice, she
telephoned Louis Leakey, a Kenyan archaeologist and palaeontologist, with no
other thought than to make an appointment to discuss animals. Leakey, believing
that the study of existing great apes could provide indications of the
behaviour of early hominids was looking
for a chimpanzee researcher, though he kept the idea to himself. Instead, he
proposed that Goodall work for him as a secretary. After obtaining his wife
Mary Leakey's approval, Louis sent Goodall to Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where
he laid out his plans. In 1958, Leakey sent Goodall to London to study primate
behaviour with Osman Hill and primate anatomy with John Napier. Leakey raised
funds, and on 14 July 1960, Goodall went to Gombe Stream National Park,
becoming the first of what would come to be called The Trimates. She was
accompanied by her mother, whose presence was necessary to satisfy the
requirements of David Anstey, chief warden, who was concerned for their safety;
Tanzania was "Tanganyika" at that time and a British protectorate. Leakey
arranged funding and in 1962, he sent Goodall, who had no degree, to Cambridge
University where she obtained a PhD degree in Ethology. She became only the
eighth person to be allowed to study for a PhD there without first having
obtained a BA or BSc.Her thesis was completed in 1965 under the tutorship of
Robert Hinde, former master of St. John's College, Cambridge, titled “Behaviour
of the Free-Ranging Chimpanzee”, detailing her first five years of study at the
Gombe Reserve.
While Dian Fossey started her conservation work
at Rwanda. On September 24, 1967, Fossey founded the Karisoke Research Center,
a remote rainforest camp nestled in Ruhengeri province in the saddle of two
volcanoes. For the research center's name, Fossey used "Kari" for the
first four letters of Mount Karisimbi that overlooked her camp from the south,
and "soke" for the last four letters of Mount Visoke, the slopes of
which rose to the north, directly behind camp.Established 3,000 metres (9,800
ft) up Mount Visoke, the defined study area covered 25 square kilometres . She
became known by locals as Nyirmachabelli, or Nyiramacibiri, roughly translated
as "The woman who lives alone on the mountain.
Unlike the gorillas from the Congo side of the
Virungas, the Karisoke area gorillas had never been partially habituated by
Schaller's study; they knew humans only as poachers, and it took longer for
Fossey to be able to study the Karisoke gorillas at a close distance.
Many research students left after not being
able to handle the cold, dark, and extremely muddy conditions around Karisoke
on the slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes, where paths usually had to be cut
through six-foot-tall grass with a machete.
For the last, Birute Galdikas started her
conservation work at Indonesia. At 25, Galdikas arrived in Borneo to begin her
field studies of orangutans in a jungle environment extremely inhospitable to
most Westerners. Galdikas proceeded to make many invaluable contributions to
the scientific understanding of Indonesia's biodiversity and the rainforest as
a whole, while also bringing the orangutan to the attention of the rest of the
world.
When she arrived in Borneo, Galdikas settled
into a primitive bark and thatch hut, at a site she dubbed Camp Leakey, near
the edge of the Java Sea. Once there, she encountered numerous poachers,
legions of leeches, and swarms of carnivorous insects. Yet she persevered
through many travails, remaining there for over 30 years while becoming an
outspoken advocate for orangutans and the preservation of their rainforest
habitat, which is rapidly being devastated by loggers, palm oil plantations,
gold miners, and unnatural conflagrations.
Galdikas's conservation efforts have extended
well beyond advocacy, largely focusing on rehabilitation of the many orphaned
orangutans turned over to her for care. Many of these orphans were once illegal
pets, before becoming too smart and difficult for their owners to handle. Galdikas's
rehabilitation efforts through Orangutan Foundation International (OFI) also
include the preservation of rainforest. Although one Canadian author in the
late 1990s was critical of the rehabilitation methods, the ongoing birth of new
orangutans among the formerly-rehabilitated adult orangutans at Camp Leakey is
part of what makes it the longest continual study of a single species. The
value of Dr. Galdikas's work has been acknowledged in television shows hosted
by Steve Irwin as well as Jeff Corwin on Animal Planet. In addition, the
importance of Dr. Galdikas's concern and work towards preserving Indonesian
rain forest has been reinforced by the biofuel article of January 25, 2007, in
The New York Times and the November 2008 article in National Geographic
magazine, "Borneo's Moment of Truth." Galdikas's organization,
O.F.I., is also involved in a reforestation project, planting native trees in
previously destroyed areas of rain forest.
2) The most challenging conservation problem Jane
Goddal faced was her first attempts to observe closely a group of chimpanzees
failed,she could get no nearer than 500 yards before the chimps fled.
Others that that, Some primatologists have
suggested flaws in Goodall's methodology which may call into question the validity
of her observations. Goodall used unconventional practices in her study, for
example, naming individuals instead of numbering them. At the time numbering
was used to prevent emotional attachment and loss of objectivity. Claiming to
see individuality and emotion in chimpanzees, she was accused of "that worst
of ethological sins,anthropomorphism.
Many standard methods aim to avoid interference
by observers, and in particular some believe that the use of feeding stations
to attract Gombe chimpanzees has altered normal foraging and feeding patterns
and social relationships. This argument is the focus of a book published by
Margaret Power in 1991.It has been suggested that higher levels of aggression
and conflict with other chimpanzee groups in the area were due to the feeding,
which could have created the "wars" between chimpanzee social groups
described by Goodall, aspects of which she did not witness in the years before
artificial feeding began at Gombe. Thus, some regard Goodall's observations as
distortions of normal chimpanzee behaviour.Goodall herself acknowledged that
feeding contributed to aggression within and between groups, but maintained
that the effect was limited to alteration of the intensity and not the nature
of chimpanzee conflict, and further suggested that feeding was necessary for
the study to be effective at all. Craig Stanford of the Jane Goodall Research
Institute at the University of Southern California asserts that researchers
conducting studies with no artificial provisioning have a difficult time
viewing any social behaviour of chimpanzees, especially those related to
intergroup conflict.
The most challenging conservation problem Dian
Fossey faced was referred to her extreme tactics as 'active conservation'. This
included funding an army of anti-poaching scouts. When Fossey came across
poachers, it was said that she would employ methods of torture, burning their
possessions and occasionally kidnapping their children (Montgomery, 1991).
After her favorite gorilla, Digit, and other familiar gorillas were slain, her
anti-poaching war became personal. Not even Jane Goodall, who described Fossey
as a good friend, could condone her extreme tactics. Many individuals claim
that Fossey was responsible for bringing on her own death as much as the person
who wielded the spear that split her skull in 1985 (Montgomery, 1991). She
imposed her own laws on a sovereign nation and made enemies of the locals. Dian
Fossey did not exhibit the care for the native people that she did for the
mountain gorillas. Her attitude toward children and animals was very western in
origin. It was in her 'active conservation' that she developed the African
philosophy.
She used stinging nettles as a method of
torture, a concept borrowed from the African tradition. She painted hexes, cast
spells, and pronounced curses (Montgomery, 1991). To the Africans, the idea of
witchcraft was very real and Fossey used this to her advantage. Not only did
she perform witchcraft, but she came to think of herself as a witch. Although
it has been suggested that some of her personal accounts have been exaggerated,
they are thought to generally encompass a truthful basis. She experienced a great
deal of pain and emotional turmoil on her road to improve the lives of her
beloved gorillas. Many of her claims, if not reality, may have been a way for
her to emotionally enact some of the acts of hatred that she had craved to
carry out. She was outraged by the atrocities committed against the mountain
gorillas. It was not the Rwandan locals that Fossey angered as a result of her
actions, so much as the authorities that she had diverted money away from
through her tourist scare tactics. She did not like any intruders in her camp
or near the gorillas. In articles and films, she displayed the Rwandan
authorities as incompetent in protecting the mountain gorillas (Montgomery
1991). For obvious reasons, this did not sit well with Rwandan authorities and they
reacted by approaching Fossey with their concerns and options to work out their
differences. One of these options involved Fossey leaving the area, possibly
returning at a later date. She felt like she did not have time to craft
'resource management plans' or wait for diplomatic solutions to be reached, so
she employed her 'active conservation' as it was the only method she felt would
be effective in protecting the gorillas
(Montgomery, 1991).
In her later years, former students spread
rumors of her paranoia, alcoholism and aggressive behaviour toward tourists
(Montgomery, 1991). The State Department seemed most anxious to arrange her
departure, but tried to work out their differences in a seemingly diplomatic
manner (Haye,s 1990). Both the Leaky Foundation and the National Geographic
Society threatened to withhold their subsidies and by 1984, National Geographic
had completely cut off Fossey's support. She then rallied one last time, using
money from the Digit Fund (explained later, under 'Relevant Conservation
Societies') and from her book Gorillas in the Mist and significantly increased
poacher patrols. A report that she had written from the first quarter of 1984
stated that her patrols had cut 582 traps and spotted 67 poachers . Despite her
'active conservation' philosophy and the fact that she either angered or scared
a significant number of people, Dian Fossey spurred great advancements in the
area of environmental protection and awareness. The Rwandan government has
become supportive of gorilla conservation and has allocated more land around
the park for cultivation and expansion .
While the most challenging conservation problem
Birute Galdikas faced was criticised in the late 1990s regarding her methods of
rehabilitation. Primatologists debated the issue on the Internet mailing list
Primate-Talk; the issue was further fueled by the publication of articles in
Outside magazine (May 1998) and Newsweek (June 1998). As reported in both
articles and summarized in the 1999 book The Follow by Canadian novelist Linda
Spalding, the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry - with whom Galdikas had clashed
over logging policies - claimed that Galdikas held "a very large number of
illegal orangutans . In very poor conditions" at her Indonesian home,
prompting the government to consider formal charges. Galdikas denied all such
claims in a response to Newsweek in June 1999, remarking that allegations of
mistreatment were "simply, wrong" and that the "outlandish"
claims formed the basis of "a totally one-sided campaign against me."
3) Jane Goodall
overcome her respective problems and shrugged off criticism from the scientific
community, which told her she shouldn’t ascribe personalities or give chimps
names instead of assigned numbers. “See, I wasn’t wanting a career in science.
I didn’t really care,” Goodall says. Her income came from Leakey’s patrons and
National Geographic, who were fine with her approach. “I didn’t want to let
Louis Leakey down. I just passionately wanted to get enough money to go on
studying chimpanzees. I didn’t want to be a professor.”
At Leakey’s urging and to help make it easier
to raise money for her work, she took time out to earn a Ph.D. at Cambridge
University, becoming one of only eight people to do so without a bachelor’s
degree. She returned to Africa to do research the way she wanted. “If people
said I was doing it wrong, I would say: ‘Well, it’s the way I want to do it.
I’ve got the money to do it this way. If you think it’s wrong, well, then, go
and do your own study in a different way. That’s fine.’
“I had a mother who said: If people don’t agree
with you, listen to them and if you still think you’re right, have the courage
of your convictions.”
While Dian Fossey not had overcome her problem
.The tension around her camp became so high that Fossey resigned directorship
of Karisoke in 1980 and became a visiting associate professor at Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York. She also began writing Gorillas in the Mist. In
June 1983, Fossey returned to Karisoke as Director. In September of that same
year, Gorillas in the Mist was published. Years later, her book was made into a
movie, with Sigourney Weaver portraying Dian Fossey.
In December 1985, her wishes for peace with the
local government came true. Sadly though, Fossey didn't get to enjoy this
peaceful atmosphere because on December 26th, 1985, Dian Fossey was found with
her skull crushed with a panga. Her killer, probably a poacher, was never found
and she was buried in the cemetery next to her beloved gorillas. Her grave is
marked.
Lastly, Birute Galdikas overcome her problem by
just get along with her advocacy work, Galdikas does continue to conduct field
research and observe orangutans in their natural habitat. In 1995, she
published Reflections of Eden, a memoir in which she recounts her experiences
at Camp Leakey, and describes her efforts to rehabilitate orangutans for
release back into the wild.
4) The Trimates that i find most inspiring are
Birute Galdikas , it was because
Biruté Galdikas has spent her life in
relentless pursuit of an aspiration she has held from childhood. She became her
own agent for fulfilling her dreams, poring over any book she could get her
hands on as a child, and working through college and grad school to achieve her
goal of studying orangutans in their native environment. Her enthusiasm
equipped her to endure unfriendly field conditions, relentless rain, poachers,
leeches, and the constant plague of carnivorous insects.
Galdikas’s research has illuminated our
knowledge and appreciation of orangutans, humans’ most distant relative within
the great apes. She has championed the preservation of the Borneo rainforest,
more and more of which is vanishing due to human activities. Beyond a purely
scientific relationship, she developed intimate connections with the Bornean
orangutans she studied. She became a matriarch to ex-captive orphans, many of
whom travelled by her side, shared her meals, and slept beside her. She adopted
infant orangutans who would treat her as a mother and cling to her at all
times. Indeed, Biruté Galdikas has bridged the gap between our species and
theirs. Through her work, she has forged not only new knowledge, but also new
relationships that are as robust as the kinship that binds us to other humans.
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