Jane Goodall, a name that for decades has been synonymous with chimpanzees, conservation, and hope, has died at the age of 91.
The world awoke to the news on Wednesday, October 1, 2025, when the Jane Goodall Institute released a solemn statement confirming her passing.
She died in Los Angeles while on a speaking tour in the United States, a schedule she continued to keep even in her nineties.
Goodall was set to appear at UCLA just two days later, a reminder of her tireless dedication to sharing her message until the very end.
The Institute’s words were simple but heavy: “Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, has passed away due to natural causes.”
For many, the idea that Goodall is gone feels almost impossible. She seemed eternal, a figure woven into the fabric of both science and global consciousness.
Her story began in Hampstead, London, where she was born in 1934, but her destiny lay far beyond England’s borders.
In 1957, she traveled to Kenya, driven by a passion for animals that had consumed her since childhood.
There she met Louis Leakey, the legendary anthropologist who would become her mentor and open the door to her life’s greatest work.
By 1960, she was living among chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, a young woman with no formal scientific training but an unmatched patience and intuition.
Her discovery that chimpanzees could create and use tools upended everything scientists thought they knew about the divide between humans and animals.
Not only did she study chimps—she gave them names, treated them as individuals, and, in time, was accepted as part of their society.
National Geographic cameras followed her, and soon her work reached the world, inspiring millions and altering the course of primatology forever.
Over the decades, she became the subject of more than 40 documentaries, including the acclaimed 2017 film “Jane,” built from unseen archival footage.
Her life was also celebrated in the 2023 IMAX feature “Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope,” which highlighted her efforts in habitat restoration and global conservation.
But Goodall was more than a scientist—she was a storyteller, a voice that reached classrooms, parliaments, and television shows from “The Simpsons” to “The Wild Thornberries.”
She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, which became a global force for wildlife protection, sustainable development, and education.
Through Roots and Shoots, her youth program, she ignited passion in countless young people who continue her mission today.
Even as she aged, she traveled the world with relentless energy, speaking on climate change, biodiversity, and the urgent need for humanity to change its course.
Her legacy is vast: the chimps she loved, the forests she fought for, and the people she inspired. She leaves behind a son, a sister, three grandchildren—and a world forever changed by her presence.
