Overview

• Goodall died on October 1, 2025 at age 91 of natural causes, prompting worldwide assessments of her impact on science and conservation.
• Her Gombe fieldwork documented chimpanzee tool making and use, overturning assumptions that only humans craft and deploy tools.
• She revealed complex social behaviors including coordinated hunting with strategic meat sharing, infanticide and cannibalism, and prolonged intergroup violence.
• Comparative studies she helped drive identified population-level behavioral variants consistent with cultural transmission, often learned from mothers.
• Her institutional legacy includes the Jane Goodall Institute with about 30 offices worldwide and the Roots & Shoots youth program backing roughly 10,000 local projects in over 60 countries, inspiring new leaders and legal advocacy for great apes.