Richard was already a skilled horseman, outdoorsman, Land Rover mechanic, archaeologist and expedition leader, he learned to identify bones. All these skills pointed to a path he did not yet wish to take, simply because his father was on it.
The bone business turned into a safari business in 1961. In 1962 he got a private airplane pilot licence and took tours to Olduvai. It was from a casual aerial survey that he noted the potential of Lake Natron's shores for paleontology. He went looking for fossils in a Land Rover, but could find none, until his parents assigned Glynn Isaac to go with him.
Louis was so impressed with their finds that he gave them National Geographic money for a month's expedition. They explored in the vicinity of Peninj near the lake, where Richard was in charge of the administrative details. Bored, he returned to Nairobi temporarily, but at that moment, Kamoya Kimeu discovered a fossil of "Australopithecus boisei". A second expedition left Richard feeling that he was being excluded from the most significant part of the operation, the scientific analysis.
During the Omo expedition of 1967, Richard visited Nairobi and on the return flight the pilot flew over Lake Rudolph (now Lake Turkana) to avoid a thunderstorm. The map led Richard to expect volcanic rock below him but he saw sediments. Visiting the region by helicopter, he saw tools and fossils everywhere. In his mind, he was already planning a new enterprise.
In 1969 the discovery of a cranium of "Paranthropus boisei" caused great excitement. A "Homo habilis" skull and a "Homo erectus" skull, discovered in 1972 and 1975, respectively, were among the most significant finds of Leakey's earlier expeditions. In 1978 an intact cranium of "Homo erectus" was discovered.
Leakey and Donald Johanson were at the time considered to be the most famous palaeoanthoropologists, and scientifically their views on human evolution were differing, a scientific rivalry that gained public attention. This culminated at the "Cronkite's Universe" talk show hosted by Walter Cronkite in New York in 1981, where Leakey and Johanson held a fierce debate on live TV show.
Turkana Boy — discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of the Leakeys' team in 1984 — was the nearly complete skeleton of a "Homo ergaster" (though some, including Leakey, call it "erectus") who died 1.6 million years ago at about age 9-12.
Leakey and Roger Lewin describe the experience of this find and their interpretation of it, in their book "Origins reconsidered" (1992). Shortly after the discovery of Turkana Boy, Leakey and his team made the discovery of a skull (known as 'Black Skull') of a new species, "Australopithecus aethiopicus" (or "Paranthropus aethiopicus").
Richard shifted away from paleontology in 1989, but his wife Meave Leakey and daughter Louise Leakey still continue paleontological research in Northern Kenya.
In 1989 Richard Leakey was appointed the head of the Wildlife Conservation and Management Department (WMCD) by President Daniel Arap Moi in response to the international outcry over the poaching of elephants and the impact it was having on the wildlife of Kenya.
The department was replaced by Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) in 1990, and Leakey became its first chairman. With characteristically bold steps Leakey created special, well-armed anti-poaching units that were authorized to shoot poachers on sight. The poaching menace was dramatically reduced. Impressed by Leakey's transformation of the KWS, the World Bank approved grants worth $140 million. Richard Leakey, President Arap Moi and the WMCD made the international news headlines when a stock pile of 12 tons of ivory was burned in 1989 in Nairobi National Park.
Richard Leakey wrote about his experiences at the KWS in his book "Wildlife Wars: my battle to save Kenya's elephants" (2001).
In May 1995 Richard Leakey joined a group of Kenyan intellectuals in launching a new political party — the Safina Party, which in Swahili means "Noah's Ark".
"If KANU and Mr. Moi will do something about the deterioration of public life, corruption and mismanagement, I'd be happy to fight alongside them. If they won't, I want somebody else to do it," announced Richard Leakey. The Safina party was routinely harassed and even its application to become an official political party was not approved until 1997.
In 1999, Moi appointed Richard Leakey as Cabinet Secretary and overall head of the civil service. Moi's hand was forced: the international donor institutions insisted as a pre-condition for the resumption of donor funds. Leakey's second stint in the civil service lasted until 2001 when he was forced to resign again.
Leakey joined the Department of Anthropology faculty at Stony Brook University, New York in 2002. He is currently a Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook, where he is Chair of the Turkana Basin Institute.
In 2004, Richard Leakey founded and chaired WildlifeDirect, a Kenya-based charitable organization. The charity was established to provide support to conservationists in Africa directly on the ground via the use of blogs. This enables individuals anywhere to play a direct and interactive role in the survival of some of the world’s most precious species. The organization played a significant role in the saving of Congo's mountain gorillas in Virunga National Park in January 2007 after a rebel uprising threatened to eliminate the highly vulnerable population.
In April 2007 he was appointed interim chairman of Transparency International, Kenya branch.
Arizona State University
Arizona State University is a public university in Tempe, Arizona. The university has about 70,440 students. It was founded in 1885. The current president of the university is Michael M. Crow.
The sports teams of the university are called the Sun Devils. ASU has 20 varsity teams, almost all of which compete in the Pacific-12 Conference.
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University is a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. The university has about 12,714 students. It was founded in 1873. The current chairman of the university, whose official title is "Chancellor", is Nicholas Zeppos. It is named after Cornelius Vanderbilt.
The athletics teams of the university are called the Commodores. They have 16 varsity teams, almost all of which compete in the Southeastern Conference (SEC). Two Vanderbilt women's teams in sports that the SEC does not sponsor are housed elsewhere. The bowling team plays in the Southland Bowling League, a single-sport conference affiliated with the Southland Conference. The lacrosse team plays in the American Athletic Conference.
Louise Leakey
Louise Leakey (born 21 March 1972) is a Kenyan paleontologist. She does research and field work on human fossils in East Africa.
Louise first became actively involved in fossil discoveries in 1977, at the age of six, when she became the youngest person to find hominid fossils. In 1993, she replaced her father Richard Leakey as field expedition leader for Turkana paleontological expeditions, in one of the most arid and hostile environments on Earth.
Today, together with her mother, Meave Leakey, she leads the Koobi Fora research project. This has produced some of the most notable hominid fossil discoveries of the past two decades, the most recent being "Kenyanthropus platyops".
Louise Leakey was born in Kenya in 1972, the same year as her grandfather Louis Leakey died. She married Emmanuel de Merode, a Belgian primatologist in 2003. They have two daughters: Seiya, born in 2004, and Alexia born in 2006.
Furikake
Furikake is a type of condiment that has a mixture of dried and ground fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate. It is popular in Japan and is usually put on rice. Furikake has around 6 calories.
My Darkest Days