Going Ape over Adobe Creek Work
Jane Goodall Cheers Casa Grande Project
Guy Kovner, Santa Rosa Press Democrat
PETALUMA - Jane Goodall, the world-renowned scientist, sat in the dry grass next to Petaluma's Adobe Creek on Monday and told about 30 teen-agers their work their work is important. Goodall, 64, the chimpanzee researcher who now travels the globe promoting youth environment projects, even offered a suggestion to the Casa Grande High School students who've been planting trees and pulling trash from the creek for 15 years and seen the native steelhead rebound from near-extinction. “It would be good if you could bill them,” Goodall said, referring to the people who dump refuse in the meandering creek bed. Earlier, in their classroom at Casa Grande's $500,000 state-of-the-art fish hatchery, the soft-spoken Goodall, 64, called the creek restoration an “exceptional project” that reflects both the “resilience of nature” and “enthusiasm of youth”. “I look forward to sharing this project around the world,” said Goodall, wearing blue jeans and a blue turtleneck, her gray hair gathered in a ponytail.
The students, who run the hatchery as members of Casa Grande's United Anglers chapter, were awed. “It's an amazing experience,” said Kim Illian, a senior and chapter president. “To meet somebody who's changed the world.” Tom Furrer, the Casa Grande wildlife teacher who hatched the acclaimed creek restoration project in 1983, called Goodall's visit an honor. “This has to be one of the most inspirational moments in the history of the program,” he said.
With scores of steelhead spawning in the creek, Furrer said many people have now become “believers,” but he recalled harsh days when critics said he was deluding his students and four-wheel-drive vehicles scarred the creek as students hauled out trash. “All we had was heart,” he told a crowd of students, Casa Grande alumni, parents and officials, including Petaluma Mayor Patty Hilligoss and Sonoma County Supervisor Jim Harberson. Peter Pfendler, the Sonoma Mountain landowner who donated $180,000 to help build the fish hatchery, made a rare public appearance, but did not speak.
Goodall, who arrived with a PBS documentary film crew in tow, said optimism is the message she want to carry from Petaluma. “This feeling of yours: 'We can do it' ” she told the students. “Other people will think: 'They did it and we can do it, too. If we don't, things are going to get worse and worse'” Goodall's visit was arranged by Terrance “Chitcus” Brown, a Karuk Indian medicine man and chairman of the Santa Rosa-based American Indian Preservation Fund. Brown, who met Goodall as a San Francisco conference four years ago, said they share interests in youth and restoring neural resources. Brown's group seeks scholarship funds for Native American students; Goodall' Roots and Shoots program, founded in 1991, encourages student groups to work on humanitarian and environmental projects.
Casa Grande's United Anglers is now among the 1,200 Roots and Shoots groups in North America, and on Monday, Goodall became an honorary United Angler, with her name embroidered on a blue and green jacket to prove it. Goodall, who fell in love with the on screen Tarzan as a young girl, went to Africa in 1960 and began, with no scientific training, a field study of chimpanzees on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in what is now Tanzania, East Africa. She earned a doctorate from Cambridge University fro her research, which showed the chimps hunt for game, make and use tools, and have a complex system of communication. A professor at Cornell University, Goodall now travels 280 days a year, promoting Roots and Shoots, advocating reforestation and women's health in Africa, as well as humane treatments for primates in laboratories. Field research continues at her Gombe Stream Research Center, primarily run by Tanzanians, said Mary Lewis, Goodall's executive assistant. Roots and Shoots, with groups in nearly 50 countries, rests on Goodall's faith that youth, once empowered, can do great work. “That's why I put all my energy into Roots and Shoots,” she said. “Because I know it's true.”
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