"The first thing I'm going to give you is a chimpanzee greeting, because it sounds lovely in a place like this," said Jane Goodall while looking out from a stage in Griffith Park across a meadow containing 1,000 people.
Her voice started off soft and low: "Oooo, oooo, oooo...." Then her voice rose: "Hooo, hooo, HOOO! HOOO!"
She finished with a smile, leaving her audience stunned for a second before they burst into applause.
Goodall, arguably the world's most famous primatologist, was in Los Angeles this weekend combining two of her passions -- world peace and chimpanzees -- in one locale: Griffith Park. Today she will address the ChimpanZoo conference being held at the Los Angeles Zoo, on protection of captive chimps. Later, at 12:30 p.m., she will speak at the zoo as part of its Ape Awareness Day.
On Saturday, she presided over the annual Day of Peace in Griffith Park, which was organized by volunteers and various chapters of the Jane Goodall Institute's youth service program, Roots & Shoots. Similar events were planned throughout the world, Goodall said.
A procession of giant white peace dove puppets, mostly constructed of recycled materials such as bedsheets and carried aloft on poles by youngsters, made its way down a forested hill and around the meadow. The parade has become the event's hallmark, and this year there were 57 puppet doves.
"I think it's great that so many people of so many ages came together to do this one project," said Lily Armstrong, 10, a sixth-grader who was working hard to grip one of the poles holding up her local Roots & Shoots chapter's peace dove.
Goodall agreed. "Everyone coming together here with peaceful thoughts in your hearts -- it just moves me," she told the crowd before listing some of the projects her nonprofit institute has undertaken on behalf of environmental conservation and boosting economic conditions.
Near Gombe National Park, a protected 30-square-mile haven for chimpanzees in Tanzania, Goodall's institute has undertaken economic programs to help local villagers. "Instead of being mad at us -- here are a bunch of people coming in only caring about chimpanzees -- they feel good about us," she said. And in return, they have cooperated with her efforts to reforest the denuded area.
Goodall spent years crawling around grassy forests watching chimpanzees go about their lives. She named them, wrote about them, discovered that they used tools and generally did for chimpanzees what Jacques Cousteau did for fish: revealed them as fascinating to the general population.
