News
Jane Goodall, world's foremost chimpanzee expert, dies at 91
She changed the way people looked at and understood primates.
October 02, 2025, 03:08 AM
Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, passed away on Oct. 1 (U.S. time) in California, United States.
She was 91.
The Jane Goodall institute issued a statement that said: “The Jane Goodall Institute has learned this morning, Wednesday, Oct. 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.”
1960s discovery
Goodall's 1960s discovery that chimpanzees were able to make and use tools completely changed the field of primatology.
Born in Hampstead, London, she travelled to Kenya in 1957 and began working with anthropologist Louis S.B Leakey.
She was 26 when she visited Tanzania for the first time to explore the world of wild chimpanzees.
Her unorthodox approach was to immerse herself in the habitat to understand its complexities.
Her studies of the animals in Tanzania in the 1960s led to her publishing in scientific journals some of the first observations of the use of tools by and communication of chimpanzees, as well as their complex social structures.
Her pioneering work was made possible by her doggedness.
She had only six months of funding, and the first four months yielded little as the primates were uncomfortable with her presence.
But after one of them eventually got used to her being around, Goodall made the breakthrough discovery via observation that chimpanzees create and use tools in the wild.
She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support research on great apes.
She subsequently established Roots and Shoots, a youth programme, among many other projects.
She has been around the world to speak about conservation, climate change and animal behaviour.
She was slated to speak in Los Angeles at UCLA on Friday, Oct. 3.
Lasting legacy
Goodall's work was captured in more than 40 documentaries.
The 2017 documentary “Jane” covered her work in great detail.
It was made by assembling 140 hours of footage that had been hidden in National Geographic’s archives.
It won two Primetime Emmys and several other awards.
The 2023 Imax film, “Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope”, featured her habitat restoration projects.
Top photos via Jane Goodall Institute France
