A STUDENT OF AFRICAN WILDLIFE
It is 5:45 am and the sun is just rising over Gombe National Park in East Africa. Following Jane's way of studying chimps, our group are all going to visit them in the forest. Jane has studied these families of chimps for many years and helped people understand how much they behave like humans. Watching a family of chimps wake up is our first activity of the day. This means going back to the place where we left the family sleeping in a tree the night before. Everybody sits and waits in the shade of the trees while the family begins to wake up and move off. Then we follow as they wander into the forest. Most of the time, chimps either feed or clean each other as a way of showing love in their family. Jane warns us that our group is going to be very tired and dirty by the afternoon and she is right. However, the evening makes it all worthwhile. We watch the mother chimp and her babies play in the tree. Then we see them go to sleep together in their nest for the night. We realize that the bond between members of a chimp family is as strong as in a human family.
Nobody before Jane fully understood chimp behaviour. She spent years observing and recording their daily activities. Since her childhood she had wanted to work with animals in their own environment. However, this was not easy. When she first arrived in Gombe in 1960, it was unusual for a woman to live in the forest. Only after her mother came to help her for the first few months was she allowed to begin her project. Her work changed the way people think about chimps. For example, one important thing she discovered was that chimps hunt and eat meat. Until then everyone had thought chimps ate only fruit and nuts. She actually observed chimps as a group hunting a monkey and then eating it. She also discovered how chimps communicate with each other, and her study of their body language helped her work out their social system.
For forty years Jane Goodall has been outspoken about making the rest of the world understand and respect the life of these animals. She has argued that wild animals should be left in the wild and not used for entertainment or advertisements. She has helped to set up special places where they can live safely. She is leading a busy life but she says: "Once I stop, it all comes crowding in and I remember the chimps in laboratories. It's terrible. It affects me when I watch the wild chimps. I say to myself, 'Aren't they lucky?" And then I think about small chimps in cages though they have done nothing wrong. Once you have seen that you can never forget ..."
She has achieved everything she wanted to do: working with animals in their own environment, gaining a doctor's degree and showing that women can live in the forest as men can. She inspires those who want to cheer the achievements of women.
非洲野生动物研究者
清晨5点45分，太阳刚从东非的贡贝国家公园的上空升起，我们一行人准备按照简研究黑猩猩的方法去森林里拜访它们。简研究这些黑猩猩家族已经很多年了，她帮助人们了解黑猩猩跟人类的行为是多么的相似。我们当天的首项任务就是观察黑猩猩一家是如何醒来的。这意味着我们要返回前一天晚上我们离开黑猩猩一家睡觉的大树旁。大家坐在树荫下等待着，这时候猩猩们睡醒了，准备离开。然后这群黑猩猩向森林深处漫步而去，我们尾随其后。在大部分时间里，黑猩猩或相互喂食，或彼此擦身，这在它们的家庭里是表示爱的方式。简预先提醒我们，到下午的时候我们就会又脏又累。她说对了。不过到傍晚时分我们觉得这一切都是值得的。我们看到黑猩猩妈妈跟她的幼子们在树上玩耍，后来看见它们晚上一切回窝里睡觉了。我明白了猩猩家庭成员之间的联系像人类家庭一样紧密。
在简之前没有人完全了解黑猩猩的行为。她花了多年的时间来观察并记录黑猩猩的日常生活。从孩提时代起，简就想在动物生活的环境中研究它们。但是，这不是一件简单的事。当她1960年最初来到贡贝时，对女性来说，住进大森林还是很稀罕的事情。她母亲头几个月来帮过她的忙，这才使她得以开始自己的计划。她的工作改变了人们对黑猩猩的看法。比方说，她的一个重要发现是黑猩猩猎食动物。而在此之前，人们一直认为黑猩猩只吃水果和坚果。她曾经亲眼看到过一群黑猩猩捕杀一只猴子，然后把它吃掉。她还发现了黑猩猩之间是如何交流的，而她对黑猩猩肢体语言的研究帮助她勾勒出黑猩猩的社会体系。
40年来，简古道尔一直在呼吁世人了解并尊重这些动物的生活。她主张应该让野生动物留在野外生活，而不能用于娱乐或广告。她还为黑猩猩建起了可以安全生活的保护区。她的生活是忙忙碌碌的，然而，正如她所说的：“我一旦停下来，所有的一切都会涌上心头。我就会想起实验室的黑猩猩，太可怕了。每当我看着野生黑猩猩时，这个念头总是萦绕着我。我会对自己说：‘难道它们不幸运吗？’然后我就想起那些没有任何过错却被关在笼子里的小黑猩猩。一旦你看到这些，你就永远不会忘记……”
简已经得到了她想要得到的一切：在动物的栖息地工作；获得博士学位；还向世人证明女人和男人一样也能在森林里生活。她激励着人们为妇女们的成就而欢呼喝彩。
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