Renowned British chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall dies at 91

British primatologist Jane Goodall, who transformed the study of chimpanzees and has become one of the most eminent fauna defenders in the world, died at the age of 91, his institute announced on Wednesday.

Goodall, “died due to natural causes” when she was in California during a speaking tour of the United States, Jane Goodall said in a press release on social networks.

“The discoveries of Dr. Goodall as an ethologist revolutionized science, and it was a tireless defender of the protection and restoration of our natural world,” added the press release.

Born April 3, 1934 in London, Goodall’s fascination for animals began in early childhood, when her father gave her a plush toys that she kept for life. She was also captivated by Tarzan’s books, on a boy raised by monkeys who fall in love with a woman named Jane.

In 1957, she went to Kenya at the invitation of a friend, where she started working for the famous paleontologist Louis Leakey.

His breakthrough came when Leakey sent her to study the chimpanzees in Tanzania. She became the first of the three women he chose to study great apes in the wild, alongside the American Dian Fossey (Gorillas) and the Canadian Birute Galdikas (Orangs-Outans).

The revolutionary observations of Goodall have included its discovery that chimpanzees use stems and herbaceous twigs as tools to fish the termites of their mounds.

On the strength of these results, Leakey encouraged him to continue a doctorate at the University of Cambridge, where she became that the eighth person to win a doctorate. Without first obtaining a undergraduate diploma.

In 1977, she founded Jane Goodall Institute to continue research and conservation of chimpanzees. In 1991, she launched Roots & Shots, an environmental program led by young people who operated today in more than 60 countries.

Her activism was triggered in the 1980s after attending an American conference on chimpanzees, where she learned the threats they have faced: exploitation in medical research, boxwood hunting and the destruction of generalized housing.

From that moment, she became a relentless defender of fauna, traveling in the world well in her 90s.

“Time for words and false promises has passed if we want to save the planet,” she told AFP in an interview last year before a summit in the United Nations in Colombia.

His message was that of personal responsibility and empowerment: “Make every day that you make a difference.”

“Each individual has a role to play, and each of us has an impact on the planet every day, and we can choose the type of impact we have.”

© 2025 AFP