Beauty and the Beasts: Woman, Ape and Evolution

That 62% of all primatologists who study chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas in hazardous and arduous terrains all over the world are women. Given the rigors of the fieldwork, this is nothing short of amazing. Some were once recruited to the field by Dr. Louis Leakey because he believed women to be more empathic and less biased observers than their male counterparts. He was right! These women range from the famous (Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Mark Leakey) to those known only within their profession (Shirley McGrill, Birute Galdikas), to others known only in obscurity. Beauty And The Beasts is the story of these women as authoritatively related by primatologist and documentary film maker Carole Jahme. The informative and exceptionally well written text is enhanced with an impressive section of photographs and tidbits of trivia (Maureen O'Sullivan, who played "Jane" in the Tarzan movies, couldn't abide Jiggs, who played Tarzan's chimpanzee companion "Cheeta"). Beauty And The Beasts is a very strongly recommended title for academic and community library collections, primatology students, and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in the history of primatology.

What impulse lures some women to abandon home and career for a harsh world studying primates in jungles? Carole Jahme's Beauty And The Beasts examines the psyche and methods of women who have pioneered primate studies, and who have followed Leakey's venture into the world of primatology, as field scientists. The intriguing question of why the majority of primatologists are women makes for added intrigue as chapters examine these women and their work.

The great apes share more than 98 percent of our DNA and in the last 40 years women have come to dominate the study of our closest relatives. Today 62 percent of primatologists are women. British primatologist Jahme's anecdotal overview of primate research focuses on the women who have shaped the field since Jane Goodall ("The Chimpanzees of Gombe," "Reason for Hope") established her chimp site at Gombe in 1958. Though women have made most of the startling discoveries about wild primate behavior, it was a man, Louis Leakey, who got it all started. Believing that the study of apes would enhance our knowledge of human evolution and convinced that women were more patient and observant than men, and therefore more suited to fieldwork, Leakey encouraged Jane Goodall's interest in wildlife and steered her to chimps. Inspired by Goodall's work, Leakey's other two "trimates", Dian Fossey ("Gorillas in the Mist") and Biruté Galdikas ("Reflections of Eden") achieved similarly impressive results studying gorillas and orangutans.Jahme strikes a good balance between the work and the women, relating the dangers and controversies along with the triumphs. Jane Goodall left Gombe for two years after she was nearly abducted by terrorists in 1975 (four other workers were taken and later ransomed) and she has been criticized for influencing chimp behavior by using feeding stations (a practice she also now condemns). Dian Fossey was only in the Congo a few months when she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped by soldiers in 1967. She was the last white person to escape the Eastern Congo and all she wanted to do was get back to her gorillas, which she did, establishing a base on the Rwandan side of the mountain. Over the years her reputation for eccentricity grew as she risked her life and battled poachers and eco-tourism in an effort to save her beloved gorillas from extinction. Fossey was murdered in December 1985 and Jahme believes her sacrifice saved the gorillas, at least for now. Birute Galdikas has all but sacrificed her scientific reputation in her passion to save the rain forests and the orangutans of Borneo.But Jahme moves far beyond the three leading ladies of primate study. She discusses Sarah Hrdy's discovery of the link between female promiscuity and male infanticide, Jo Thompson's study of the female-bonded bonobos, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work with apes and language, Thelma Rowell's successful challenge of male dominance theories among baboons, Barbara Smuts' work with chimps, dolphins and baboons. Just to name a few.She explores how understanding of primate behavior has helped shape our understanding of human evolution and how field observation overturned the traditional male approaches and assumptions, until science came to embrace the idea that animals have emotions and are capable of love, murder and tool use. She profiles the women who rehabilitate captive chimps into the wild, sacrificing years of their lives in an effort that, more often than not

Jahme relates the great surge in the past 50 years in the study of primates by the great encouragement of noted anthropologist Louis Leakey inspiring Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas and other women to live among chimps, baboons, gorillas, bonobos and orangutans, and study their daily behavior. She describes the women, their personal lives, their discoveries of primate behavior, the utility of those discoveries for the study of man. Jahme is aware that when one tries to tame a wild creature, that creature's behavior can change. It is a well written book with references to other books on similar subjects. Its general conclusion is that our primates are very close to us.

This is a fascinating book and a must read for anyone interested in primates, primatology, evolution of man, the history of this area of science, the development of language, and the conservation of primates. Jahme discusses the major female primatologists (Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas) as well as many lesser known, but equally important, women (and some men) in the field. Women seem to be better suited to studying primates in the wild, over long periods of time, in physically demanding and isolated environments than men are. They are attracted to this challenging field partially because of their innate maternal instincts. I gave this book a 4 because there are several factual mistakes, and many grammatical errors. These interfere with the flow of thought and makes one wonder if there are other factual errors that are not immediately apparent. This author needs a good editor, not just for the grammar but to verify facts. Still, it's fascinating for the layperson or anyone with a smattering of a background. Humans and chimpanzees share 98.5 of their DNA; this fact alone should make the subject of primatology and evolution important to every one of us.