For a published author of 18 books and a self-described zoologist, feminist, author, animal rightist and wildlife photographer, this year’s Distinguished Old Girl Award recipient, Anne Innis Dagg, is surprisingly down to earth. Chatting by telephone on a Sunday afternoon, Ms. Dagg is good natured and modest as we discuss topics ranging from her days at BSS, studying giraffe in the wild, the challenges faced by women in academia and her introduction to apartheid in South Africa.
Ms. Dagg has always known what she wanted to do with her life. When she was two years old her mother took her to the Chicago Zoo and it was here that she was introduced to the giraffe, an animal that has captivated her throughout her career. It was this first glimpse at the zoo that spawned her dream of travelling to Africa to research giraffe in the wild.
Born in 1933, Ms. Dagg grew up in Toronto, where her ambition to study the behaviour of the giraffe was not altogether typical. However, her parents, renowned professor and communications theorist, Harold Innis, and noted writer and former Dean of Women at University College, Mary Quayle Innis, provided her with unwavering support and encouragement to pursue her dreams.
Ms. Dagg lived only a few short blocks from BSS. It was here that she met her two best friends, with whom she remains close to this day. While at BSS she displayed a love of sport and was on a number of teams including basketball, tennis, lacrosse, badminton and, when it was cold enough for the outdoor rink, hockey. This devotion to athletics carries on; she plays tennis twice a week near her home in Waterloo.
Although her passion lay in Biology and the study of animal behaviour, Ms. Dagg didn’t take Biology at BSS. Instead, she enrolled in Chemistry and Physics in Grade 13, as she was told at the time that this would better prepare her for university.
After graduating from BSS, Ms. Dagg attended the University of Toronto, where she completed her BA in Honours Biology with the Gold Medal for scholarship. She wanted to go to Africa to do field work immediately after getting her degree, but she didn’t know where to start or how to go about it. So she started writing letters. She wrote to anyone and everyone she thought might be able to help her get there. Despite her efforts, no one was particularly helpful, some were even amused at the notion of a ‘girl’ travelling on her own to do such work.
In the meantime, she enrolled in the Master’s program at the University of Toronto to study the genetics of mice. During her work at the university, a fellow student connected her with a professor in South Africa, Jakes Ewer.Mr. Ewer then put her in touch with Mr. Matthew, a farmer with a large citrus farm with many giraffe near the Kruger Park. After corresponding with Ms. Dagg, the farmer invited her to stay on the farm and complete her research on the giraffe. However, earlier reactions to her goal of travelling and studying giraffe had made her cautious, and she had only used her initials in her correspondence so as to not alert people to the fact that she was female. Sure enough, the farmer assumed he was inviting a young male researcher to stay with him.
Undaunted by this detail, at the age of 23, Ms. Dagg completed her Master of Science and set out for Africa. She arrived by ship in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and then travelled to Grahamstown where Jakes Ewer was a professor at Rhodes University. While staying with the Ewers, she received a letter from Mr. Matthew rescinding the invitation to the farm. He had discovered from one of her letters that she was female and felt it wasn’t proper for her to come as she would have to stay in the house, not with the cattle hands as he had originally intended, and his wife and daughters were out of the country. After some debate Mr. Matthew relented and she set out to drive over 1,000 miles to the farm.
Ms. Dagg quickly adjusted to life on the farm, rising each morning at 5:00 am to head out and find giraffe, going back to the house for breakfast at 8:00 am and spending the remainder of the day with giraffe until dinner at 6:00 pm. In the evenings she would sit and listen to Mr. Matthew tell stories about his life and Africa until, almost asleep in her chair from her day spent in the bush, she would politely make her escape to bed.
There were over 90 giraffe roaming the farm and Ms. Dagg would go out and observe groups of seven to 10 at once, “I would watch them interact and Mr. Matthew and I also filmed them,” she says. Until this time no one had ever really studied the giraffe and there were certainly no published works about their behaviour. She not only conducted behavioural studies, she also made mappings of the local flora and worked out which species of plant they liked to eat. During her stay, a giraffe was killed on the farm and she participated in the dissection, another first, which, like a true scientist, she thoroughly appreciated.
Ms. Dagg had arrived in Africa in 1956, when apartheid had recently been implemented. Apartheid, meaning separateness, was a system of legal racial segregation enforced by the government of South Africa between 1948 and 1993 under which minority rule by white people was maintained.
Says Ms. Dagg, “I was incredibly excited to be in Africa, I had dreamed of it for my whole life…but I found the racism shocking the maid was not allowed to stay in the house as whites and blacks could not be in the same place overnight…all of the workers on the farm were black, and, when I arrived I tried to be friendly with them, but the white managers did their best to prevent this as it was not encouraged or accepted.”
While Ms. Dagg was in Africa she wrote to her mother every week discussing her research, travels and adventures. One week, she wrote her mother a letter saying she was off to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, leaving her in suspense until the next letter assuring her that the climb had been a success.
Ms. Dagg spent four months on Mr. Matthew’s farm before leaving for east and central Africa to observe giraffe in different habitats. She then returned to the farm in South Africa for another few months where she completed her behavioural and ecological studies.
Before Ms. Dagg had left for Africa she had met a young physicist, Ian Dagg. Although she wasn’t sure whether he would wait for her while she was away for a year studying giraffe, he did, and on her way back to Canada they were married in London, England. He died in 1993 after 35 years of marriage.
After returning to Canada a married woman, Ms. Dagg was unable to find a permanent job in biology and so took temporary jobs, including teaching Physical Education at a local school for students aged four to 20, which she describes as “quite an experience” and worked on her writing and research.
After moving to Waterloo with her husband, who had been offered a job as a physics professor at the University of Waterloo, Ms. Dagg found it was much harder for women to get into academia than it was for men and animals need people to fIght for them. Writing books and having them published is very satisfactory. I’m hoping it will change people’s understanding and draw attention to the current situations of many animals.
She had difficulty finding a job in her field. She soon found a part time position teaching one course, which she did for three years. She was thoroughly enjoying teaching, and asked to teach two courses. She was told this was possible, but she would still be considered part time, whereas the male professors with the same course load were permanent, full time employees.
“At this point I thought I’d better get my Ph.D as I’d never be taken seriously without it” she says. “I completed my doctorate in Animal Behaviour at the University of Waterloo and wrote my thesis on the gaits of large animals.” This thesis was the first study of its kind and much of the analysis and findings were taken from her own films of giraffe in South Africa.
Ms. Dagg didn’t slow down after obtaining her Ph.D; in 1967 she travelled with her husband and three young children, Hugh, Ian and Mary, to Australia while her husband was on sabbatical. While in Sydney, she became an unofficial Research Associate at the Taronga Zoo. Accompanied by Mary, she would visit the zoo every day to study the behaviour of giraffe and other animals. After returning to Canada a year later she went on to work as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Guelph, teaching Mammalogy and Biology. This was Ms. Dagg’s first full time position in her field and, after being denied tenure for a number of official reasons, but unofficially because of her gender, she left the University in 1972 to focus on activism, research and writing. After experiencing challenges and frustration in her own professional life due to discrimination, Ms. Dagg was instrumental in driving change and drawing attention to the inequity of women in Canada, particularly in academia. In 1988 she published Miseducation: Women and Canadian Universities, discussing sexism in universities against women students, staff and faculty. By this time she had also published a number of books on a range of other topics related to biology including Camel Quest Canadian Wildlife and Man, Summer Research on the Saharan Camel, Wildlife Management in Europe, Running, Walking and Jumping: The Science of Locomotion, and The Giraffe: its Biology, Behavior and Ecology.
While Ms. Dagg continues to be a pioneer as a zoologist and feminist, her attention is now directed to advocating for the rights and welfare of animals, who she says “need people to fight for them.” She is especially proud of what she’s doing now: writing about animals. “Writing books and having them published is very satisfactory. I’m hoping it will change people’s understanding and draw attention to the current situations of many animals.”
In 1978, Ms. Dagg was hired by students as a Resource Person in the Integrated (now Independent) Studies Program of the University of Waterloo, a program developed entirely for and by the students. Its unique approach encourages students to choose their own courses and focus on what interests them, rather than a prescribed course of study. Recent thesis project topics have included “Producing, Packaging and Selling Contemporary Music” and “Modern Communication Networks and the Search for Information.” Currently, Ms. Dagg is a Senior Advisor for the program.
Ms. Dagg’s newest book, Animal Friendships, due to be released in August 2011, gives readers a new and unique look into the lives of the animals she loves and to whom she has devoted so much of her time and energy. It is an academic study of social behaviour in wild animals, exploring animal bonding behaviours and social interactions including mutual grooming, playmates for infants and the pleasure of companionship.
Recently recognized by BSS as the tenth Distinguished Old Girl Award recipient for exemplifying the School’s values and tradition of excellence, Ms. Dagg continues to impact the lives of others through her leadership, adventurous spirit and extensive contributions to the fields of biology, zoology, activism and animal rights.
Ms. Dagg is currently collaborating on a book on human evolution. “Our thesis is that for over four million years our forbearers were not aggressive killers, but were actually monogamous groups living mostly amicably.” The book, Ms. Dagg says, “raises another perspective entirely to the work that is currently published.” She continues to influence her field and develop new passions and aspirations, so it is appropriate that her advice to current BSS students is a saying she obviously lives by: “Go after your heart, don’t let anyone hold you back.” Fitting words from a very inspiring woman.
