Jane Goodall's name will forever be linked to chimpanzee study, but her second act is having a much broader impact on the planet.
The woman best known for fascinating us with the antics and heartbreaks of chimps named Fifi, Flo and Frodo now dedicates her life to environmental causes. Through the Jane Goodall Institute, she has founded two internationally influential conservation programs -- Roots & Shoots for youths and TACARE (Take Care), which involves locals in efforts to preserve rain forests and wildlife.
These days, her home base is London, although she spends less time there than on the road, lecturing and fundraising, including a local stop at Beth El Synagogue on Monday.
Goodall, 76, doesn't have time to observe chimps anymore, but her first loves remain close as can be to her heart. Only slightly more than 300,000 are left in the wild, down from well over a million when she began her historic observation in 1960.
"They're spread over 21 countries, many in tiny isolated groups with little hope of long-term survival," she said.
Goodall, who is magnetic precisely because she never tries to charm, has another persuasive power -- bridging the gap between emotion and science as effortlessly as a chimp swings from vine to vine. When she first returned to England to report her findings to scientists, she was accused of anthropomorphizing the chimps by giving them names and claiming to know their feelings. She learned to say things like "Fifi behaved as if she was depressed" rather than "Fifi was depressed" to prevent her data from being thrown out.
"At the time, theories of animal behavior were very reductionist," she said. "When I talked about chimps having personalities and frames of mind, I was berated soundly."
And how about now, after she has earned the title Dr. Goodall, numerous honors and such monikers as "the Einstein of behavorial science"?