Overview

• The Jane Goodall Institute announced her death on October 1, confirming she passed of natural causes in California while on a lecture tour.
• Beginning in 1960 at Gombe in Tanzania, her field research revealed chimpanzee tool-making and complex social lives, transforming modern ethology.
• Her observations challenged assumptions about the human–animal divide by documenting omnivory, learned behaviors, and rich social bonds among chimpanzees.
• She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 and created the Roots & Shoots youth program in 1991 to drive conservation and education.
• A United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2002, she received numerous international honors and remained an active advocate on climate and biodiversity into her nineties.