Dr. Jane Goodall, world renowned conservationist and primatologist, is promoting her Roots & Shoots program, a global environmental and humanitarian youth program that spans 110 countries, and she has recently been on Bill Moyers talking about it and her new book “Hope for Animals and Their World.” It was a really good program, but didn’t intersect with the blog so I reluctantly dropped it. Until now.
I was poking around the blogosphere and came across this clip from The Daily Show via the animal welfare blog at Change.org. I had not heard about the complaint that followed Dr. Goodall’s 75th birthday celebration from an animal rights group. Dr. Goodall has advocated for animal rights for many years, and walks through the world with kindness, not the brash shrillness of extremists, which she touches on in this clip–with compassion. And now I have an excuse to bring up her work! Here’s the clip with hat tip to Stephanie Feldstein. And what do you think about the complaint? Fair, or not?
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Jane Goodall | ||||
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Dr. Goodall is as close to a saint as we have living in the world today. She is as compassionate towards humans as to non-human animals. If you read what she's written about the use of non-human animals in research, for example, you could not fail to appreciate this. People who criticize her, especially about trivia like birthday cakes, are childish
though ironically, she misspeaks about the condor restoration efforts. It was certain environmental extremists, not the government, who didn't want the remaining birds to be captured for breeding, on the grounds that to do so was "unnatural".
I was in a state of disbelief at the whole birthday tempest…there are those who enjoy lying in wait waiting for someone of Goodall's stature to make what they see as a wrong move and jump on them as if it's a point game. Goodall is so impressive in her humility and so compassionate to her detractors. ( If you didn't catch the Moyers piece, there are several available online.) What is true is that none us knows or remembers everything correctly all the time, as your further comment notes. I wonder though if at some point in the fight that the government didn't seem to be siding with Koford, and that's what she's thinking of. (As with the mandatory spay neuter bill that seemed like a lock in Chicago and then wasn't) But you would have had to have been there… Thanks for adding your knowledge to the discussion.