Following Fifi: My Adventures Among Wild Chimpanzees: Lessons from our Closest Relatives

An exhilarating quest into a remote African forest to examine chimpanzees and understand the roots of human behavior.

As a young student, John Crocker embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, spending eight months in the Gombe forest working with Jane Goodall. He followed families of wild chimpanzees from sunrise to sunset and learned the fundamental behavioral traits of these chimps as they raised their offspring.

One chimpanzee captivated him. Her name was Fifi, and she displayed extraordinary patience and reassurance toward her infant, Freud. Upon returning home and becoming a doctor, Crocker found himself incorporating the lessons he learned from Fifi into his work as a father and physician. When he witnessed his young patients rocketing around his exam room, he would picture Fifi’s patience and tacit approval of Freud’s uninhibited and joyful exploration.

Crocker shares how his time spent with our closest animal cousins has helped him better understand his patients with ADD, anxiety, and depression, and how primate traits hardwired into our own natural behavior help chimpanzees protect their community, raise their young, and survive. Finally, chronicling his return to Gombe thirty-six years later with his own son, he reflects on how his experience with the chimps has come full circle.

An illuminating book that will raise thought-provoking questions about the evolution of human behavior and the importance of patience and strong family bonds, Following Fifi provides a greater understanding of what it means to be human. 

John Crocker has been practicing family medicine in Seattle for thirty-five years. He attended Stanford University, where he met Jane Goodall. He received his MD from Case Western School of Medicine in Cleveland. Dr. Crocker is a popular speaker on primate behavior and has written for the Huffington Post about lessons learned from our closest living relatives. This is his first book.

Jane Goodall continues to study and write about primate behavior and is the author of several books. She founded the Gombe Stream Research Center in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, and the Jane Goodall Institute for Wild Life Research, Education, and Conservation to provide ongoing support for field research on wild chimpanzees.