Jane Goodall, the pioneering primatologist who transformed humanity’s understanding of chimpanzees and became a leading voice for conservation, has died. Her more than six-decade career reshaped science and inspired a global movement for animals and the planet.
Jane Goodall, the British primatologist whose groundbreaking research in Tanzania forever changed the way the world understands chimpanzees, has died at 91, according to an Instagram post from the Jane Goodall Institute.
“The Jane Goodall Institute has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 1, 2025, that Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute has passed away due to natural causes,” reads the Instagram post. Goodall was in California as part of her speaking tour. “Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.”
For more than six decades, Goodall devoted her life to studying and protecting the natural world, beginning in 1960 when, at just 26 years old and with no formal scientific training, she arrived at Gombe Stream National Park in what was then Tanganyika. Armed with a notebook, binoculars, and her characteristic patience, she documented behaviors that would rewrite science textbooks.
She was the first to observe chimpanzees making and using tools, a discovery that forced scientists to reconsider long-held assumptions about the uniqueness of human intelligence. “We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human,” her mentor, the famed anthropologist Louis Leakey, said after her finding was published.
Goodall’s work was radical not just in its scientific implications, but in its method. Where earlier primatologists numbered their subjects, Goodall named hers — David Greybeard, Flo, Goliath — and spoke of them as individuals with emotions, personalities, and complex social lives. Her approach, once dismissed by some in the scientific establishment, became a cornerstone of modern primatology.
Beyond science, Goodall became one of the world’s leading conservationists and advocates for animal welfare. In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which today operates in nearly 70 countries and spearheads community-centered conservation. She launched Roots & Shoots in 1991, a global youth program encouraging young people to take action for people, animals, and the environment.
Her influence extended far beyond the lab and lecture hall. A soft-spoken but unyielding advocate, she traveled more than 300 days a year well into her 80s, delivering her message of hope and responsibility to audiences from schoolchildren to world leaders. “Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference,” she often said.
Goodall was the subject of numerous books and documentaries, including the 2017 film Jane, which drew from never-before-seen footage of her early years in Gombe. Her honors included the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004, the French Legion of Honor, and her appointment as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002.
Born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall in London on April 3, 1934, she credited her mother with encouraging her curiosity about animals from a young age. A childhood fascination with Tarzan and Dr. Doolittle inspired her dream of living in Africa to study wildlife.
Goodall is survived by her son, Hugo van Lawick Jr., known as “Grub,” from her marriage to Dutch photographer Baron Hugo van Lawick.
Her legacy is immeasurable: not only a trove of scientific discovery, but also a moral call to action in defense of the natural world. She often said she was sustained by hope, a belief that humanity could still change course. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you,” she once said. “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”
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