Jane Goodall, the pioneering British primatologist and conservationist whose work transformed humanity’s understanding of chimpanzees and our relationship with the natural world, has died at 91. The Jane Goodall Institute, the organization she founded in 1977, announced her passing on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, stating she died of natural causes in California while on a speaking tour in the United States. Goodall’s death marks the end of an era in scientific discovery and environmental advocacy, but her legacy continues to inspire scientists, conservationists, and the public worldwide.
Goodall’s journey into the wild began in 1960, when, at just 26 years old, she ventured into Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, her research there would “revolutionize science” and forever change our understanding of what it means to be human. With little more than a notebook, binoculars, and an unquenchable curiosity, Goodall immersed herself in the lives of wild chimpanzees, observing them in ways no one had before. She quickly made discoveries that challenged prevailing scientific beliefs: chimpanzees, she found, could communicate, develop individual personalities, and—most famously—make and use tools. As reported by ABC News, she described her early astonishment: “Their behavior, with their gestures, kissing, embracing, holding hands and patting on the back... The fact that they can actually be violent and brutal and have a kind of war, but also loving and altruistic.”
Goodall’s approach was unconventional for the time. She named her chimpanzee subjects—David Graybeard, Flo, Gilka, and others—rather than numbering them, a practice that initially drew criticism from the male-dominated scientific community. Yet her detailed observations, published in Nature in 1964, forced the world to reconsider the boundaries between humans and animals. As the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould later wrote, Goodall’s work became “one of the Western world’s great scientific achievements.”
Her findings went far beyond tool use. Goodall documented chimpanzees’ complex emotional lives, including filial love, grief, and even episodes of violence bordering on warfare. Perhaps most startling was her observation of a four-year “war” between rival chimpanzee groups at Gombe—a discovery that shattered the myth of peaceful, gentle apes and raised profound questions about the origins of human aggression. “During the first 10 years of the study I had believed... that the Gombe chimpanzees were, for the most part, rather nicer than human beings,” she reflected in her memoir, Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. “Then suddenly we found that the chimpanzees could be brutal—that they, like us, had a dark side to their nature.”
Goodall’s passion for animals and nature began in childhood. Born April 3, 1934, in London and raised in Bournemouth, she was the daughter of a businessman and a writer. She filled her room with worms and snails, much to her family’s bemusement, and spent hours observing animals in their natural habitats. Books like Doctor Dolittle and Tarzan fueled her dreams of living among wildlife in Africa. “It was daydreaming about life in the forest with Tarzan that led to my determination to go to Africa, to live with animals and write books about them,” Goodall wrote in her memoir.
Her chance to realize those dreams came after a fateful meeting with the renowned anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey in Kenya in 1957. Leakey, impressed by Goodall’s passion and observational skills, hired her as his secretary and soon selected her to lead the Gombe chimpanzee study. This appointment was groundbreaking—not only for the scientific questions it would answer, but also for the doors it opened for women in science. According to the Jane Goodall Institute, the number of women in STEM fields has risen from 7% to 26% since the 1970s, a change Goodall helped inspire by example.
Goodall’s scientific work soon made her a household name, thanks in part to documentaries and books that brought the lives of her chimpanzee subjects to a global audience. She became a National Geographic heroine, and her fame only grew as she shifted her focus from research to advocacy. By the 1980s, she was traveling up to 300 days a year, speaking to schoolchildren, policymakers, and community leaders about the urgent need to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. She founded Roots & Shoots, a youth program now active in 130 countries, and launched TACARE, a sustainable development initiative in Africa.
Goodall’s commitment to conservation and animal welfare never wavered. She spoke out against deforestation, animal trafficking, and the exploitation of great apes in laboratories. In a 2019 interview with ABC News, she warned of the climate crisis, saying, “We are definitely at a point where we need to make something happen. We are imperiled. We have a window of time. I’m fairly sure we do. But, we’ve got to take action.” Even in her late 80s and 90s, Goodall continued to campaign for environmental causes, partnering with companies like Apple to promote recycling and reduce mineral mining. “Yes, people need to make money, but it is possible to make money without destroying the planet,” she told ABC News in 2022. “We’ve gone so far in destroying the planet that it’s shocking.”
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced Goodall to pause her globe-trotting schedule, but she quickly adapted, launching a podcast from her London childhood home to continue her outreach. “If one wants to reach people; if one wants to change attitudes, you have to reach the heart,” she said during her first episode, emphasizing the power of storytelling over argument.
Goodall’s achievements earned her countless honors. She was named a UN Messenger of Peace in 2002, received the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal in 1995, and was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2021 for integrating science and spirituality in her life’s work. In 2025, President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor. In a nod to her cultural impact, Mattel released a Jane Goodall Barbie doll in 2022, dressed in khaki and made from sustainable materials, to mark the 62nd anniversary of her first arrival at Gombe.
Through it all, Goodall remained humble, crediting the chimpanzees themselves for her insights. “People say to me, thank you for giving them characters and personalities,” she told CBS’s 60 Minutes. “I said I didn’t give them anything. I merely translated them for people.”
The Jane Goodall Institute, now the world’s longest-running study of wild chimpanzees, continues her mission to preserve great ape habitats and foster a new generation of environmental stewards. As the world reflects on Goodall’s extraordinary life, her message remains urgent: “They’re still teaching us,” she said in 2020. And perhaps, if we listen, we can learn not just about chimpanzees, but about ourselves and our shared responsibility to the planet.
