By: Express Web Desk October 2, 2025 01:04 AM IST First published on: Oct 2, 2025 at 01:03 AM IST ShareWhatsapptwitterFacebookHer discoveries “revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world. (Photo: AP)Jane Goodall, the British conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee research, has died, the Jane Goodall Institute announced on Wednesday. According to the institute, Goodall died of natural causes at the age of 91 while in California on a US speaking tour.Her discoveries “revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the Institute said.While living among chimpanzees in Africa decades ago, Goodall documented the animals using tools and doing other activities previously believed to be exclusive to humans, and also noted their distinct personalities.Jane Goodall plays with Bahati, a 3-year-old female chimpanzee, at the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary near Nanyuki, north of Nairobi, on Dec. 6, 1997. (AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju, File)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.While first studying chimps in Tanzania in the early 1960s, Goodall was known for her unconventional approach. She didn’t simply observe them from afar but immersed herself in every aspect of their lives. She fed them and gave them names instead of numbers, something for which she received pushback from some scientists.Her findings were circulated to millions when she first appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1963 and soon after in a popular documentary.Goodall was a pioneer in her field, both as a female scientist in the 1960s and for her work studying the behavior of primates. She created a path for a string of other women to follow suit.Primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall delivers the 50th George Gamow Memorial Lecture at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo., Oct. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)She also drew the public into the wild, partnering with the National Geographic Society to bring her beloved chimps into their lives through film, TV and magazines.She upended scientific norms of the time, giving chimpanzees names instead of numbers, observing their distinct personalities, and incorporating their family relationships and emotions into her work. She also found that, like humans, they use tools.Born in London in 1934 and then growing up in Bournemouth on England’s south coast, Goodall had long dreamed of living among wild animals. She said her passion for animals, stoked by the gift of a stuffed toy gorilla from her father, grew as she immersed herself in books such as “Tarzan” and “Dr. Dolittle.”She set her dreams aside after leaving school, unable to afford university and worked as a secretary and then for a film company until a friend’s invitation to visit Kenya.Goodall arrived in the East African nation in 1957 and worked with famed anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey.Nearly thirty years after first arriving in Africa, however, Goodall said she realized she could not support or protect the chimpanzees without addressing the dire disappearance of their habitat.In her later years, Goodall devoted 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.She said she realised she would have to look beyond Gombe, leave the jungle, and take up a larger global role as a conservationist.In 1977, she set up the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting the research in Gombe as well as conservation and development efforts across Africa. Its work has since expanded worldwide and includes efforts to tackle environmental education, health and advocacy.She later expanded the institute to include Roots & Shoots, a conservation program aimed at children.From her base in the British coastal town of Bournemouth, she traveled nearly 300 days a year, even after she turned 90, to speak to packed auditoriums around the world.In 2003, she was appointed a Dame of the British Empire and, in 2025, she received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom.President Joe Biden presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservationist Jane Goodall in the East Room of the White House, Jan. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)A prolific author, she published more than 30 books with her observations, including her 1999 bestseller “Reason For Hope: A Spiritual Journey,” as well as a dozen aimed at children.Goodall said she never doubted the planet’s resilience or human ability to overcome environmental challenges.“Yes, there is hope … It’s in our hands, it’s in your hands and my hands and those of our children. It’s really up to us,” she said in 2002, urging people to “leave the lightest possible ecological footprints.”She had one son, known as ‘Grub,’ with van Lawick, whom she divorced in 1974.AdvertisementAdvertisementLoading Taboola...