Jane Goodall Dies While on Speaking Tour: Pioneering Chimpanzee Researcher Was 91
Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91. The world-renowned primatologist died of natural causes in California while on a public speaking tour, according to an announcement made by the Jane Goodall Institute on Wednesday, October 1.
“The Jane Goodall Institute has learned this morning, Wednesday, October 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,” read the statement shared on Instagram. “She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States. Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.”
The ethologist was known for her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees conducted in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, in the 1960s, and her animal rights activism and conservationist efforts that followed.
Her full name was Dr. Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall. She was born in Bournemouth, England, on April 3, 1934. At the time she began her chimpanzee research in Africa, she had not yet received a college education.
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Goodall discovered that chimpanzees can make and use tools, have distinct personalities and emotions with complex social relationships, and are omnivores. Her discovery of human-like behavior in chimpanzees revolutionized science’s understanding of the animal and the field of primatology. She studied chimpanzees for over 60 years, making herself known as the foremost expert on the animal. Before her research, it was believed that only humans utilized tools and that chimpanzees were vegetarians.
Goodall founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 and used the organization to help protect chimpanzees and their habitats. She expanded her efforts to environmental conservation over the years.
Goodall was the subject of over 40 documentaries. She spoke with TV Insider about Jane, Nat Geo’s 2017 documentary that used never-before-seen footage that had been sitting in the National Geographic archive for over five decades.
“I never thought that another documentary could be new for me, but this has taken me back to those days more than any other movie that’s been done,” she told us. “There’s an immediacy.”
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