Jane Goodall Institute says primatologist dies in California during US speaking tour.
Published On 1 Oct 2025
Jane Goodall, the British conservationist and primatologist renowned for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees, has died aged 91.
The Jane Goodall Institute announced in a Facebook post on Wednesday that Goodall died of natural causes in California during a speaking tour in the United States.
“Dr Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist transformed science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of the natural world,” the institute said.
Born in London in 1934, Goodall began researching free-living chimpanzees in Tanzania in 1960.
She observed a chimpanzee named David Greybeard make a tool from twigs and use it to fish termites from a nest, a ground-breaking observation that challenged the definition of humans as the single species capable of making tools.
In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to protect great apes and their habitat and supports youth projects aimed at benefitting animals and the environment.
Goodall devoted her later decades to education and advocacy on humanitarian causes and protecting the natural world. She was known for balancing the grim realities of the climate crisis with a sincere message of hope for the future.
From her base in the British coastal town of Bournemouth, she travelled nearly 300 days a year, even after she turned 90, to speak to packed auditoriums around the world. Between more serious messages, her speeches often featured her whooping like a chimpanzee or lamenting that Tarzan chose the wrong Jane.
In 2002 she took up a prominent United Nations role when she became a Messenger of Peace.
“Today, the UN family mourns the loss of Dr Jane Goodall. The scientist, conservationist and UN Messenger of Peace worked tirelessly for our planet and all its inhabitants, leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and nature,” the UN wrote in a post on X.
