The Trimates

The Trimates, sometimes called Leakey's Angels, were three women – Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas – chosen by anthropologist Louis Leakey to study primates in their natural environments. They studied chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, respectively.

Background

Louis Leakey's interest in primate ethology stemmed from his attempts to recreate the environment in which the primate, Proconsul, lived in the Rusinga Island region. He saw similarities between this environment and the habitat of the chimpanzees and gorillas. He had been trying to find observers since 1946. In 1956, he sent his secretary, Rosalie Osborn, to Mount Muhabura in Uganda to "help habituate" gorillas, but she returned to England after four months. Leakey was considering taking the job himself when Jane Goodall providentially brought herself to his attention.

To fund Goodall's research at the Gombe Stream Preserve, Leakey created the Tigoni Primate Research Center, north of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1958. With donations from sources including the National Geographic Society and the Wilkie Foundation, the Tigoni Research Center helped secure funding for all three of the women Leakey dubbed the "Trimates". After Kenya achieved independence the center became the National Primate Research Center. It later became the Institute of Primate Research of the National Museums of Kenya, located in Nairobi.

At the time of Leakey's death in 1972, Goodall and Dian Fossey had progressed significantly in their long-term field research in Africa, while Biruté Galdikas was just getting underway with her field studies in Indonesia. A fourth researcher, Toni Jackman, traveled with Leakey with plans to study bonobos, but funding was not secured before Leakey's death and she studied other primates in Kenya.