Groundbreaking chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall has died, the institute bearing her name said Wednesday. She was 91 years old.
“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. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States,” the organization posted on Instagram.
A schedule of events shows Goodall was scheduled to speak in Los Angeles on Friday.
“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the post continued.
Her legacy dates back to 1960, when she first traveled to Tanzania at age 26 to study chimpanzees. Through her years of research, she was often depicted crouching in the trees, notebook in hand, watching primates through her binoculars.
That sort of immersion into the animals’ natural environment was at the time an unorthodox approach to field research, the Jane Goodall Institute explains.
While living among the chimps, Goodall documented the animals using tools and doing other activities previously believed to be exclusive to people, and also noted their distinct personalities. Her observations and subsequent magazine and documentary appearances in the 1960s transformed how the world perceived not only humans’ closest living biological relatives but also the emotional and social complexity of all animals, while propelling her into the public consciousness.
″What the chimps have taught me over the years is they’re so like us. They’ve blurred the line between humans and animals,″ she told The Associated Press in 1997.
In addition to her work as a primatologist and researcher, she became a vocal conservationist, fighting against deforestation.
“Because we are part of the natural world, not only that, we depend on it for food, water, clothing – everything. We depend on healthy ecosystems, the complex intertwining of different animal and plant species,” she said at Global Citizen Festival 2024 in New York City. “If nature continues to deteriorate the way it is now, what’s the future for our grandchildren?”
She received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Joe Biden on Jan. 4, 2025.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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