Jane Goodall, the world’s most important expert in chimpanzees, whose work has been filmed in over 40 documentaries, passed away Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 91 years old.
The Jane Goodall Institute issued a statement saying, “On Wednesday, October 1, 2025, the Jane Goodall Institute learned that Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, PhD and founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, passed away due to a natural cause.
She was scheduled to speak at UCLA’s Los Angeles on Friday.
Her work was featured in detail in the 2017 documentary “Jane,” which was assembled from 140 hours of footage hidden in National Geographic archives. He won two Primetime Emmys and several other awards.
She was the subject of over 40 documentaries, including National Geographic, Animal Planet, and Disney Nature. Most recently, the 2023 IMAX film, “Jane Goodall: Reason of Hope,” explored a project to restore her habitat. She also called out to animation shows such as “The Simpsons” and “The Wild Thornberries.”
Goodall was the protégé of famous anthropologist Louis SB Leakey. Her 1960 discovery that chimpanzees could create and use tools revolutionized the primate field.
Born in Hampstead, London, she traveled to Kenya in 1957 and soon began working with Leakey. Rather than giving them numbers, she became known for naming the chimps she worked with, becoming the only person to be accepted by chimpanzee society.
She founded the J-Good All Institute in 1977, supporting the study of great apes and founded the roots and shoots, youth programs, Takare, focusing on sustainable development in African villages.
Goodall toured the world with many talk dates each year, talking about conservation, climate change and animal behavior.
She was survived by a son, sister and three grandchildren.
