Jane Goodall, a British primatologist and zoologist known as the world’s most noted expert on chimpanzees after spending decades in Africa, has died, according to the Washington-based Jane Goodall Institute. She was 91.
The conservationist was born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall in Bournemouth in 1934 and went to secretarial school in South Kesington. She first traveled to Kenya in 1957, and the groundbreaking research on chimpanzees’ intelligence that made her famous started three years later.
In 2023, Goodall, then 88, was at Florida International University’s Ocean Bank Convocation Center at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus in Miami-Dade County’s University Park neighborhood -- not as a researcher, but as a conservationist. It was one of her many speaking engagements around the world.
“Well, I came here to share the fact that we have a window of time to try and slow down climate change and loss of biodiversity, and it’s closing still, and if we let it close, then we will reach — some scientists say we reached the point of no return already, and I don’t believe that," Goodall told Local 10 News Anchor Louis Aguirre. “This part of Florida seems to need that message.”
Related Don’t Trash Our Treasure story: Living legend Jane Goodall has hope for environment, discusses what South Floridians can do to help
Goodall’s scientific work started after Louis Leakey, an anthropologist and paleontologist, worked with her at a natural history museum in Nairobi, after he hired her as an assistant for secretarial work. Without academic training, Leakey’s mentorship resulted in her doing her own research at the Gombe reserve.
Hugo Van’s historic photographs of her interacting with the chimpanzees she had named instead of numbered made it to a National Geographic magazine in 1963 after receiving National Geographic Society grants in 1961. She earned a doctorate degree in ethology from the University of Cambridge in 1966 and founded her institute in 1977.
As an honorary member of the World Future Council and as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, Goodall went on to become one of the most influential environmentalists in the world and continued her speaking engagements until she died of “natural causes,” according to her institute’s Instagram post.
Related obituary: Conservationist renowned for chimpanzee research and environmental advocacy, has died
“Out there in nature by myself, when you’re alone, you can become part of nature and your humanity doesn’t get in the way,” she told The Associated Press in 2021. “It’s almost like an out-of-body experience when suddenly you hear different sounds and you smell different smells and you’re actually part of this amazing tapestry of life.”
Goodall published “Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey‚” an autobiography that she co-authored with Phillip Berman; “Hope for Animals and Their World: How Endangered Species Are Being Rescued from the Brink,” an audio book she co-authored with Thane Maynard and Gail Hudson; “50 Years at Gombe: A Tribute to the Five Decades of Wildlife Research, Education, and Conservation,” a pictorial tribute; and “Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants,” which she co-authored with Gail Hudson.
Goodall also published “In The Shadow Of Man,” “My Life With The Chimpanzees,” "Through A Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe," and “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times.”
Goodall held honorary doctorates from dozens of universities around the world. Her long list of awards included the U.S. Presidential Medal of Honor, the French Legion of Honour, and the Kyoto Prize. Goodall was devoted to fundraising to protect chimpanzees from deforestation.
Related external content
Goodall left behind the 36 episodes of her Hopecast podcast.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
