“Talkin’ ‘Bout Monkeys…”

Friday night, we went to see Dr. Jane Goodall, and her fascinating presentation: “Talkin’ ‘Bout Monkeys!”

It may actually have been “Gombe & Beyond”, but whatever she called it, over the course of about 90 minutes, we heard all about her life, and her career in Africa – learning about chimpanzees.

For example, did you know that humans have about 98% of their DNA in common with chimpanzees? Men have even more!

Dr. Goodall stood alone on the rather large stage, and spoke with charm, humour, and much passion about her life’s work – starting back in 1960, after growing up reading about Tarzan and (the other) Jane. Funny, I’ve been reading about Spiderman since I was a kid, and despite every effort I employ, I am still completely unable to swing from webs, or crawl vertically up the side of skyscrapers. And it’s not for a lack of trying, let me tell you…

Dr. Goodall covered the changes she has seen in 48 years of research, and unfortunately, none of it was very good. When she began her program, there were over 1 million chimpanzees in the wilds of Africa. Now, most of them work in low-paying fast food restaurant jobs.

No, no –just kidding. The bad news was that there are now less than 100,000 chimpanzees, left trying to survive in the wild. At this point, I should probably direct you to www.janegoodall.ca , for actual facts, because really, this probably isn’t the best place to come for actual facts and truth. But this is a serious topic, so please, visit that website, and you might view just a fragment of what we were treated to, Friday night…

Chow for now!!

Oooo Oooo Oooo….