The world has lost a trailblazing legend.
Dr. Jane Goodall, the famed anthropologist, ethologist, primatologist and conservation activist has died, her conservation organization confirmed. She was 91.
"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," the company said in a statement shared on Facebook. "She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States."
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."
Born in London in 1934, Goodall rose to fame in the 1960s with her pioneering research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, which helped shed light on the overall behavior of primates and their relationships. After her early years studying primates in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, she became just the eighth person to attend Cambridge to obtain her Ph.D. without an undergraduate degree.
And in the ensuing decades, she continued her advocacy in the animal welfare and environmental space.
"I feel that I was put on this planet with a mission," Goodall—mom to son Hugo “Grub” Eric Louis van Lawick, 58, with first husband Baron Hugo van Lawick—told Alex Cooper on the May 21 episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, one of her final interviews, which was conducted one day before her 91st birthday. "We're going through dark times and the big problem is people are losing hope."
She continued, "Many people come up to me and say, 'Well, I look around all that's going wrong in the world and I just feel helpless.' So I say, 'well, you can't solve the problems of the world, but what about where you live, your community? Is there something there?'"
As for the inspiration behind her calling, Goodall cited being "born loving animals," a hobby further stoked from books like The Story of Doctor Dolittle and Tarzan of the Apes.
"What did Tarzan do? He married the wrong Jane," she joked. "That's when my dream began. I would grow up, go to Africa, live with wild animals and write books."
She said people dismissed her ideas as "ridiculous." Except her mom, Margaret "Vanne" Morris-Goodall, who died at age 94 in 2000. (She is also predeceased by her second husband Derek Bryceson, who died after a battle with cancer in 1980 at 57.)
"She said, 'If you really want to do something like this, you're going to have to work really hard. Take advantage of every opportunity. And if you don't give up, hopefully you find a way.' And that's the message I take around the world, particularly in disadvantaged communities. And I wish mom was alive and maybe she's listening.'"
And her legacy continues with grandkids Angel van Lawick, Merlin van Lawick and Nick van Lawick, Grub’s three kids with wife Maria van Lawick.
"My grandmother never really pushes us to do anything," Angel told The Press Democrat in 2014. "She just tells us, 'Never lose hope. If you really want to do something, go ahead and do it.'"