Jane Goodall, renowned chimpanzee researcher and conservationist, has died at 91, the Jane Goodall Institute announced on Wednesday.
“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. She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States,” read a statement from Goodall’s non-profit conservation organization.
The statement continued, “Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.”
Fans have flooded the Institute’s official announcement with tributes to Goodall and the impact she’s had on their understanding of animals and wildlife conservation.
“One of my idols… Rest in peace Jane and thank you for inspiring generations of girls” one user wrote on Instagram, while another added, “She was my hero since i could speak. I’ll always be grateful for the joy she brought into this world. I’ll always love her.”
Born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on April 3, 1934, in Hampstead, London, Goodall was considered the world’s leading expert on chimpanzees. Her research began in 1957, after traveling to Kenya and meeting Louis Leakey, a renowned anthropologist, who encouraged her to study the human origins of chimpanzees. In 1960, after establishing a camp in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, Goodall dedicated herself to closely observing the behavioral patterns of chimpanzees. Through her empathetic approach, Goodall was able to earn the chimpanzees’ trust, allowing her to make revolutionary discoveries and effectively change the way animals are studied.
But Goodall’s legacy and cultural impact extend beyond her life’s work: She’s also considered one of the first “pop-culture scientist-communicators” by National Geographic. Below, we’ve rounded up five unique facts about the late wildlife conservationist.
Goodall inspired a Stevie Nicks song
Stevie Nicks penned the track “Jane” about Goodall. Serving as a celebration of Goodall’s life and accomplishments, it was the final track on Nicks’s 1994 album, Street Angel. Nicks debuted the track, which was then titled “Jane’s Song,” at the International Tribute to Jane Goodall, a benefit held in Dallas in October 1991.
On the chorus, Nicks sings, “There are angels, here on earth, angels/ There are angels, here on earth/ Angels, send from God/ Come away from the wall, stay with us/ Well, you can, Jane.”
Goodall loved more than just chimpanzees
While chatting with GQ in 2021, Goodall revealed how much she’s enjoyed learning about “the intelligence of the octopus,” citing the 2020 film, My Octopus Teacher. Goodall said that she’d become close friends with the film’s director, Craig Foster. The pair, Goodall told GQ, frequently communicated about the wonders of the deep ocean.
“There’s new things cropping up all the time in the world of animals, insects, birds, and more sophisticated ways of studying them. It’s just a magic time for any student who wants to go into that field,” Goodall said.
My Octopus Teacher went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2021.
In the same 2021 interview with GQ, Goodall elaborated on her belief that Bigfoot could very well exist. Goodall opened up about a previous trip to Ecuador, which informed this belief. “Every single country,” she added, has its own version of the myth.
“Yeti, Yowie in Australia, Wild Man in China. So I don’t know if it’s perhaps a myth that stems from maybe the last of the Neanderthals,” Goodall disclaimed. “But then is the last of the Neanderthals still living in these remote forests? I don’t know. But I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist and I’m not going to say people who believe in it are stupid.”
Goodall acknowledged her looks helped her get publicity
While chatting with Yahoo in 2018 Goodall admitted that her appearance garnered considerable attention early in her career. Though it helped that she “wasn’t born ugly,” she said the emphasis placed on her looks felt “pretty stupid.”
“Nothing to do with how you know your study, what you look like. But if they were going to, if that was going to give me more coverage, then that would be helpful because it was always having to get more money and also getting the word out,” she told Yahoo.
Goodall, however, believes that the treatment of women in science has improved.
“I think it’s much, much better,” she told Yahoo. “But I think there are some branches of hard science where it’s still difficult for women and especially in some countries. But it’s definitely changing. And in some respects, it’s changed.”
It all started with a stuffed animal named Jubilee
Goodall’s fascination with chimpanzees began when she was a child. At just 1 year old, Goodall’s father gave her a stuffed chimpanzee, which fostered her deep appreciation for animals. Goodall named her plushie “Jubilee” to celebrate the birth of the London Zoo’s first chimpanzee.
“In all my childhood, I never wanted a doll, I wanted toy animals, and a chimpanzee was so exotic, but I never thought of studying chimpanzees at the time,” Goodall revealed in a 2021 interview.
