Jane Goodall, A Primatologist Who Changed How We See Ourselves, Dies At 91

Dame Jane Goodall, the woman whose patient presence under a Tanzanian canopy rewrote what it meant to be human, has passed away at the age of 91. The Jane Goodall Institute announced that she passed away from natural causes on October 1, 2025, while in California on a U.S. speaking tour.  

She arrived at Gombe Stream in 1960 as a twenty-six-year-old with little formal scientific training but unshakeable curiosity. Sent by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, she settled into a small camp on the edge of the forest and began to watch. Instead of the distant, sterile observation then expected in field science, she practiced intimate, patient attention. She gave individual chimps names, attended to their personalities, and waited, sometimes for days, until their behaviour revealed itself. That method, empathetic, meticulous and open to surprise, produced some of the twentieth century’s most consequential discoveries about animal minds.

Among Goodall’s first and most dramatic findings was the use of tools by chimpanzees. In 1960, she watched a chimp modify a twig to fish for termites, a behaviour previously thought to be an exclusively human mark of intelligence. That observation challenged the concept of human exceptionalism that had shaped primatology and sparked fierce debate in scientific circles. It also forced a re-evaluation of definitions such as “tool” and “culture.” Over years in Gombe, she documented hunting, complex social alliances, grief, play and organised violence. These behaviours made clear how close we are, biologically and emotionally, to the great apes.

Goodall’s route to academic credibility was unconventional. Lacking an undergraduate degree, she nonetheless earned a PhD in ethology from the University of Cambridge in 1965. Her papers and books brought field science to the public, and she became as well-known outside the laboratory as inside it. 

By the late 1970s, Goodall had shifted from pure research to conservation and activism. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to protect chimpanzees and their habitats, and to translate field insights into on-the-ground conservation. In 1991, she launched Roots & Shoots, a youth-led education programme designed to give children tools to tackle local environmental and humanitarian problems. Roots & Shoots grew into a global network, and the institute became a central platform for sanctuaries, community-centred conservation and scientific continuity at Gombe.er long list of honours, from the Kyoto Prize to the French Légion d’honneur,  traced the breadth of her impact.

She was appointed a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2002 and promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2003 (the investiture followed in 2004). In 2021, she was awarded the Templeton Prize; in 2025, she received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. These were not just ceremonial decorations: they were recognitions of a life in which observation, compassion and activism were braided together. 

Goodall’s life was also threaded through with human stories, sometimes comic, sometimes wrenching. The young fieldworker who preferred solitude fell in love with a photographer sent to document her work. Hugo van Lawick arrived at Gombe and soon proposed by telegram; they married in 1964 and had a son, Hugo (known as “Grub”), before eventually divorcing. At times her devotion to her work and to conservation required difficult personal trade-offs, but those choices produced the longest-running study of wild chimpanzees in history and a body of evidence that continues to be mined by scientists today.

In recent weeks and days, she remained herself: an untiring speaker and encourager of young people. At an event shortly before her death, a video message she recorded was shown to students. She spoke of youth as “one of my greatest reasons for hope,” urging new generations to pay attention to their ecological footprint and to act. Tributes have poured in from leaders, scientists, and celebrities who recalled her courage, kindness, and the catalytic power of her work.

Jon Stewart, on social media, summed up a common feeling: “Jane Goodall was just the best… damn.” 

Her approach was not without controversy. Early critics questioned the anthropomorphic tone of naming animals and the emotional language she used. Later debates touched on the limits of conservation in a world shaped by extractive economies and politics. Goodall confronted these tensions openly. She evolved from field scientist into a public moral voice who urged systemic change, from agricultural reform to ethical treatment of animals, and she did so with a mixture of scientific authority and moral clarity that made her message urgent and widely accessible.

What will endure is not a single discovery but an entire way of seeing. Goodall taught generations that science can be precise and humane, that listening matters as much as measuring, and that advocacy can be rooted in rigorous evidence without losing sight of compassion. The institutions, sanctuaries, and educational programmes she established will continue the work of protecting chimpanzee habitats and training local leaders. Her published work, including field notebooks, popular books, and films such as the acclaimed documentary "Jane," continues to convert curiosity into conviction. 

She is survived by her son, Hugo, and the extended family of researchers, conservationists and young activists she inspired. In a world that still struggles to balance development with the natural order she loved, Goodall’s life remains a call: to look closely, to care deeply, and to act with the patience necessary to see change through.

As the Jane Goodall Institute put it in its announcement, her discoveries “revolutionised science,” but her truer legacy may be this: the millions of people who, because of her, learned to see other lives, animal and human, as worthy of concern.