Like a lot of us of a certain generation, primatologist Dr. Paula Pebsworth distinctly remembers being inspired by the August 1963 cover story in National Geographic about Jane Goodall. Pebsworth recalls, “She’s got her arm outstretched to an infant chimpanzee, and I was thinking, ‘Oh gosh, I want to do that.’”
That initial inspiration led, in time, to Pebsworth’s PhD and her own career as a primatologist. Recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship, she will spend most of 2026 working with students at University of Venda in South Africa, teaching them field research skills for estimating chacma baboon populations and for human-wildlife conflict mitigation.
It might be hard for people of later generations to imagine just how ground-breaking Goodall’s work was in the 60s, and how unusual it was for little girl readers to see a woman scientist studying non-human primates in African forests. At a time when scientists were supposed to view their non-human subjects as “other” and stick to identifying numbers, Goodall literally reached out to them and gave them names. Her observations led to a significant discovery about chimpanzees’ use of tools that shattered the old paradigm of human uniqueness.
Pebsworth was captivated by the National Geographic story and dreamed of becoming a primatologist herself. Her parents, who were not college-educated, supported her ambition to get a degree but, out of concern for her future, encouraged her to think practically about a career in teaching or nursing.
An adult male chacma baboon reaches for an acorn.
But reality was changing. In her late 20s, Pebsworth was volunteering with Patricia Wright, studying lemurs in Madagascar. Over the course of Pebsworth’s studies and career, Goodall went from role model to mentor. Pebsworth was fortunate to meet her a number of times, and to correspond by email when she had questions. “Jane and I were cut from the same cloth,” she reminisces. “I’m incredibly grateful that I got to see her before she passed,” when they met in Texas just two weeks before Goodall’s death on October 1, 2025, at the age of 91. “To have someone like Jane to be a role model to me was incredibly meaningful, and I’m really grateful for her inspiration.”
Pebsworth feels she and Goodall shared an extreme curiosity. When she read about the famous conservationist spending hours watching dung beetles, Pebsworth identified. “When I was a kid, I could just watch ants” for long periods of time. Observing wildlife, Pebsworth learned, requires “the capacity to not become bored.” People would say to her, “‘I’d like to do what you do,’ but I’d say, ‘No, you don’t.’ There’s nothing glamorous about it but if you love wildlife, you’re just thrilled.” Today, when she’s not out in the field observing primates in Africa but at home in her suburban Austin neighborhood, “I walk every day. I can pretend I’m in a forest. I can be in nature, feel the wind on my face. I hear birds, watch the changing of the leaves, I acknowledge people and pet every dog.” She sometimes takes herself camping, and believes “it’s really crucial that we find ways to unplug.”
Pebsworth will soon be embarking on an ambitious project, the Chacma Baboon Project, in South Africa, associated with the University of Venda in Limpopo Province. There she will work with students and faculty to survey chacma baboon populations and explore reducing human-wildlife conflict, particularly the crop predation that local chacma baboons are unfortunately known for, and finding ways for baboons and humans to co-exist peacefully. Pebsworth chose Venda because it was a historically disadvantaged university due to the legacy of apartheid, because the region offers exceptional opportunities for field-based research and community engagement, and to work with Professor Lourens Swanepoel. Her project aims to “build local capacity by providing hands-on training and mentorship and help young South Africans to gain practical experience and knowledge in field research methods.” She also hopes to have a joint capacity-building workshop with students from neighboring Mozambique. Maybe they will even start a Roots and Shoots group, an initiative founded by Jane Goodall that has spread throughout the world to large cities, small villages and rural areas.
A mother baboon playing with her infant while the troop looks on.
No stranger to South Africa, Pebsworth did her dissertation fieldwork in the Western Cape. There she studied geophagy, or self-medicative soil-eating, among chacma baboons, an interest that grew naturally out of her master’s degree in soil science. Observing that the baboons in the area ate a lot of the local clay-rich soils, she suggested that the practice could provide detoxification by adsorbing secondary metabolites, such as alkaloids and tannins, found in their plant-based diet. Simply put, the clay provides a surface for these potentially toxic substances to cling to so that they are excreted rather than absorbed into the baboon’s system. Pebsworth says that climate-driven increases in temperatures are likely to alter the chemistry of both wild and domestic plants, causing them to produce more secondary metabolites, and she wouldn’t be surprised if other non-human animals adopt or increase the practice of soil-eating.
“We don’t consider ourselves an animal,” Pebsworth points out, but in South Africa, people can buy small packets of clay for essentially the same purposes of aiding digestion and soothing an upset stomach.
A male baboon eating clay-rich soil.
The Venda project will focus on both training students to do fieldwork and gathering data about chacma baboon populations and habits. A pilot study will test different population estimation techniques to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Pebsworth says that in South Africa, baboon management practices “have been based on perception” rather than solid data. In the Western Cape, farmers are allowed to kill one baboon per day, as they are considered pests. Surveys of baboon populations in various parts of South Africa are scarce and out of date. The last survey in Kwa-Zulu Natal was done in 2009 while the most recent ones in Limpopo date to the 1970s. In Kwa-Zulu Natal, scientists expected to find about 100,000 baboons but only counted 11,000.
Like all species, chacma baboons need space, including contiguous habitat. Human population growth and the consequent expansion of cultivated land have massively encroached on their habitat in recent decades. Pebsworth advocates for listening to subsistence farmers: “I feel their plight and want them to feel heard.” With accurate data, Pebsworth and her colleagues can work with farmers to develop mitigation strategies. In India, saree fences, literally made with the cloth of old sarees, create a visual and physical barrier that discourages crop predation. Could something similar based on the local culture work in South Africa?
A female baboon eating a forb, a non-grass flowering plant.
“Baboons are very smart,” Pebsworth says admiringly. “The easy strategies don’t work.” Baboons are so agile they hop over barbed wire fences, so a variety of simple, low-tech deterrents will be explored including mirrors, firecrackers and buffer crops such as fast-growing radishes and alfalfa. Higher tech solutions might include camera traps that convey an early warning to a watcher’s cell phone that would enable them to scare away the baboons before they do damage. Other methods could include “creating a ‘landscape of fear’ using various cues, from targeted sounds to the use of newer technologies, although these methods can be costly and need human involvement.”
“Baboons habituate quickly,” Pebsworth says, “so you have to keep mixing it up.”
Long term, as the seemingly inexorable effects of climate breakdown march on, shortages of resources, particularly water, must be addressed for both humans and wildlife. Because baboons are so intelligent, “as the rivers and creeks dry, they use dams and boreholes.” She has seen them lick condensation off air conditioners and chew discarded water bottles to access any remaining drops of water, and “they’ve learned to get moisture from a prickly pear. Animals will find a way.” Pebsworth cites other examples of adaptation such as one baboon troop moving a long distance when the black wattle trees that provided 40% of their diet were cut down, and learning to sleep in trees rather than among rock faces, which was previously extremely rare.
Two juvenile chacma baboons eating black wattle seeds.
Pebsworth hopes that chacma baboons will continue to be resourceful. “Can we provide water in places we want baboons?” she asks rhetorically. Could local people facilitate reforestation, create artificial geophagy sites to attract baboons and “exclude ourselves from the spaces we set aside” as we do in game parks and reserves?
Inspired by Jane Goodall’s desire to be “the voice for those who have no voice,” Pebsworth is working to be the voice for baboons. “They are a highly persecuted species, and one of the few primates that push back against humans. As we have encroached on their habitat, the baboons are saying, ‘I was here first!’” She also admires their humor. “They are incredibly funny … and sometimes I think humans are losing their sense of humor.”
And although baboons are regarded by many as pests and threats, many Indigenous peoples admire their strength and “fierceness, they are quick and agile, and have big canines.” The San people of southern Africa revered baboons, as did ancient Egyptians. In southern Africa, they are frequently depicted in ancient rock art.
Pebsworth first met Jane Goodall in 2010 at an International Primatological Society meeting in Kyoto, Japan, where Pebsworth was completing her dissertation. Over the years, their acquaintance provided opportunities for Pebsworth to ask questions and get advice from her informal mentor, many times through Goodall’s personal assistant of 35 years, Mary. “I wrote her infrequently,” she says, always mindful of Goodall’s busy and demanding schedule, “and she always responded.”
Shortly after receiving news of her selection as a Fulbright scholar, Pebsworth had a dream that she was giving a public lecture about her work. In the dream, she said, “I’m not Jane Goodall, but she told me to tell you…” and then she woke up.
Pebsworth contacted Mary to ask what Goodall would want Pebsworth to tell the world, Mary said, “Ask her yourself,” and invited her to Goodall’s talk in Austin, Texas, which turned out to be two weeks before Goodall’s passing. Pebsworth had her chance to tell her mentor about her upcoming project and asked, “What would you have me tell people?”
Goodall talked about the importance of personal responsibility, as she often did both publicly and privately. She repeated her well-known maxim, “Remind people that you matter. What you do matters. You need to think carefully about the decisions you make and the actions you take and pick actions that can help make the world a better place.”
Pebsworth had the chance to tell her role model that “I study non-human primates because of you and the groundwork you laid for me. I’m interested in helping people co-exist with non-human primates, and that commitment comes directly from your inspiration.” Although Goodall was as vibrant, clear and dynamic as ever, Pebsworth had the fleeting thought that this conversation was especially meaningful, one she might not experience again. Two weeks later, Jane Goodall passed peacefully in her sleep.
Jane Goodall and Paula Pebsworth deep in conversation at their last meeting.
In the wake of the passing of a legendary figure marking the end of an era, Pebsworth reflects on how Jane Goodall influenced her life. When her now-adult children were young, she strove to teach them values of caring for the Earth and for both human and non-human communities. They started a Roots and Shoots group in a small town in Texas, and both her children have continued their devotion to community service in various ways.
“What does it mean to be human?” Pebsworth asks. “We don’t fully understand the interconnectedness of the web.” Her work in Venda is bound to increase knowledge and experience of that very interconnectedness. “Those of us still in the field must consider how best to carry forward Jane Goodall’s life work and the message she devoted her life to sharing.’”
I ask Pebsworth what gives her hope. She cites the resilience and adaptability of wildlife, and then adds thoughtfully, “also humans.” When she walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain last spring, she realized that she regularly meets people who care deeply about wildlife. Not only famous influential people like Jane Goodall, but also “many others working with equal commitment.” After a brief pause, Pebsworth concludes, “And I’m trying to be one of those people who, just by being here, make the world even slightly better for wildlife.”
To learn more about the Chacma Baboon Project and to follow Paula’s work, visit the project’s website: Chacma Baboon Project.
Baboon photos by Paula Pebsworth. Photo of Jane Goodall and Paula Pebsworth courtesy of Jane Goodall Institute.
