The Houston Zoo Presents An Evening with Jane Goodall

The Houston Zoo presents our fifth annual Feed Your Wild Life Conservation Gala: An Evening with Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE. In July 1960, at the age of 26, Jane Goodall traveled from England to what is today Tanzania and bravely entered the little-known world of wild chimpanzees. She was equipped with nothing more than a notebook and a pair of binoculars. But with her unyielding patience and characteristic optimism, she won the trust of these initially shy creatures. She managed to open a window into their sometimes strange and often familiar-seeming lives. The public was fascinated and remains so to this day.

The Houston Zoo Wildlife Conservation Program supports 25 projects in nearly a dozen countries. From Lions in Mozambique to Houston Toads right here in Texas, our program is a critical part of the Houston Zoo's mission to protect wildlife species and their habitat.

The Feed Your Wild Life Conservation Gala has generated nearly $750,000 over the past four events in support of these programs. Please join us and our very special guest Dr. Jane Goodall as we work together to inspire communities and conserve wildlife.

It has been 50 years since Jane Goodall stepped on to the beach at Gombe, Tanzania (then called Tanganyika) to begin her study of wild chimpanzees, and with that first step, the chimpanzee become more than a character in a book or in a Tarzan movie or simply a wild beast to tame. The chimpanzee became a species of wildlife with a personality and emotions. They showed both empathy and aggression towards each other, social structure and cognitive thought. They were found to be both foragers and hunters, and they showed the development of primitive “tool” use. Up until that point, anthropologists saw tool-making as a defining trait of mankind. When Jane wrote Louis Leakey, her mentor and the man who set her on her course for her life’s work, of her discovery, he replied: “Now we must redefine ‘tool,’ redefine ‘man’ or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

 

Join us for cocktails, dinner, animal experiences, a silent auction and an evening presentation by Dr. Jane Goodall in support of the Houston Zoo Wildlife Conservation Program. For 50 years, Dr. Goodall has been a driving force in the protection of wildlife and the education of local communtiies in support of the Earth's vast and awe-inspiring animals.

Hear firsthand accounts of the conservation programs Dr. Goodall and the Jane Goodall Institute have established to secure populations of wild chimpanzees.