I’m Andrea Sachs, from Time Magazine.
We’re here today with Dr Jane Goodall,
the renowned primatologist,
who’s known worldwide for her studies of chimpanzees
in the Gombe Reserve in Tanzania.
Dr Goodall has written a wonderful new book,
Hope for Animals in their World:
How Endangered Species are Being Rescued
from the Brink.
Dr Goodall,
nice to see you.
Good to see you.
Kantesh Guttal in Pune, India, asks,
"How can you be so empathetic with the chimps?"
I think one is either an empathetic person or not.
Some people are very non-caring to other people
and some people just seem to care about animals and not people.
Unfortunately, I realized learning from the chimpanzees
how we are a part of the Animal Kingdom.
Chimpanzees teach us that
there isn’t a sharp line dividing us.
And so the kind of empathy that I feel for people
is the kind of empathy that I feel for chimpanzees.
Okay. Do they have a dark and brutal side to their nature?
Yes,
so are people,
and it comes out in the most unexpected situations.
But ,
by and large,
chimpanzees show far more frequently tendencies of compassion
and empathy and love than violence and brutality.
Which do you like better, chimps or humans?
Chimps are so like us
that I like some chimpanzees much better than some humans
and some humans much better than some chimpanzees.
There’s no question.
Hyeok Kim in Seoul, Korea, asked,
"What was the most touching moment
in your time with the chimps?
Is there a particular…?
Well, there are two.
One was when I was following
David Greybeard,
the first chimp
to lose his fear,
following him through the forest in the very early days.
And he suddenly veered through
a very tingly, thorny clump of vegetation,
I was crawling after him and,
you know,
getting thorns and like catching my clothes and everything.
So, I gave up.
I thought that he had disappeared,
but when I got through,
he was sitting there waiting until I sat near him.
And there was a ripe red palm nut on the ground,
picked it up because chimps love them,
handed out towards them.
He turned his face away, s
so I put my hand closer
and he turned,
he looked directly in my eyes.
He reached out, he took the nut.
He didn’t want it.
He dropped it,
but he very gently squeezed my hand,
which is how chimpanzees reassure each other
So, that was like a communication that probably for us predates words.
And the other one was when Flo,
who also lost her fear quite early on,
she has this little infant who’s just learning to walk,
he’s about five months old,
and she trusts me so much
that when he totters towards me and reaches out
she doesn’t snatch him away like he used to,
but she keeps a hand
protectively around him
and she lets him reach out to touch my nose,
and this was just so magic.
Specialist McKinzie Baker at Camp Taji in Iraq asked,
"How do you work with so many animals and not get overly attached to them?"
Well, I’ve always been very attached to the animals I work with.
And although a scientist is supposed to be
subjective
and lack in empathy,
I’ve always felt this is wrong.
Fortunately, there’s a growing number of other scientists who feel the same
and it’s the empathy that you feel
with an animal,
not a subject but an animal,
a living individual being
that really helps you to understand.
The science comes in when you say,
okay I think, because I feel this empathy
so that behaviour must mean
something
And then you can use your scientific training
to ask the questions and find out if your intuition is correct.
"What’s your position on people 
who have chimps as pets
given the implications for violence
such as the woman in Connecticut
whose chimpanzee attacked her neighbour?"
It’s absolutely wrong
to have a chimpanzee as a pet
or any of the primates for that matter
and most other exotic species, too.
Chimpanzees, yeah, when they are little they’re cute
People have been a surrogate children,
but by the time they reach early adolescence,
they already are as strong as a human
and chimpanzees are completely unpredictable.
You cannot predict what will trigger 
a sudden anger or rage.
And so, we’re…
actually the Jane Goodall Institute is fighting very hard
for legislation
that will prohibit people owning other non-human primates as pets.
Very rare can they give them a good life.
Why should we sell our closest living relatives as a pet?
It’s not a pet. It’s an individual.
It has its own way of living
and it’s not suited to live in our houses.
Now, Chet Kim in Birmingham, Michigan asks,
"You’ve chosen to spend more time with animals,
yet you have hoped for humanity.
What do you see in animals you don’t see in us?"
Well, that’s a kind of loaded question, isn’t it?
Animals, by and large, are not destroying their environment,
although some of them would if they could
but they’ve developed a natural balance
and typically, when an animal species
starts overpopulating an area
something happens,
as it used to with humans,
to bring that down,
to be in balance with the natural world.
But now, because of modern medicine,
human populations are spiralling, mushrooming
out of control.
So
The question I always ask is
how does this most intellectual species
that’s ever walked the planet,
how is it that we’re destroying our only home,
and I think that there’s a disconnect
between the clever brain
and the site of love and compassion, the human heart.
And what we have to do
is to link the heart with the brain again.
And let us move forward,
understanding that this life is about a lot more than just making money
and we should not be living for money.
We need money to live.
So, that’s why I’m working so hard with youth,
to create a critical massive young people 
with this philosophy.
That’s my hope for the future.
