Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, died on Wednesday at the age of 91, the institute she founded said.<\/p>\n
Goodall died of natural causes, the Jane Goodall Institute said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. Goodall\u2019s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The primatologist-turned-conservationist spun her love of wildlife into a lifelong campaign that took her from a seaside English village to Africa and then across the globe in a quest to better understand chimpanzees, as well as the role that humans play in safeguarding their habitat and the planet\u2019s health overall.<\/p>\n
From the archives: Jane Goodall has been famous for decades. The primatologist still isn\u2019t used to it<\/a><\/p>\n Goodall was a pioneer in her field, both as a female scientist in the 1960s and for her work studying the behaviour of primates. She created a path for a string of other women to follow suit, including the late Dian Fossey.<\/p>\n She also drew the public into the wild, partnering with the National Geographic Society to bring her beloved chimps into their lives through film, TV and magazines.<\/p>\n She upended scientific norms of the time, giving chimpanzees names instead of numbers, observing their distinct personalities, and incorporating their family relationships and emotions into her work. She also found that, like humans, they use tools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have found that after all there isn\u2019t a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom,\u201d she said in a 2002 TED Talk.<\/p>\n As her career evolved, she shifted her focus from primatology to climate advocacy after witnessing widespread habitat devastation, urging the world to take quick and urgent action on climate change.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re forgetting that we\u2019re part of the natural world,\u201d she told CNN in 2020. \u201cThere\u2019s still a window of time.\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Goodall, pictured in July, 2019, died of natural causes.Galit Rodan\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n In 2003, she was appointed a Dame of the British Empire and, in 2025, she received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.<\/p>\n Born in London in 1934 and then growing up in Bournemouth on England\u2019s south coast, Goodall had long dreamed of living among wild animals. She said her passion for animals, stoked by the gift of a stuffed toy gorilla from her father, grew as she immersed herself in books such as Tarzan and Dr. Dolittle.<\/p>\n She set her dreams aside after leaving school, unable to afford university. She worked as a secretary and then for a film company until a friend\u2019s invitation to visit Kenya put the jungle \u2013 and its inhabitants \u2013 within reach.<\/p>\n Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, has died. She was 91.<\/p>\n The Associated Press<\/p>\n After saving up money for the journey, by boat, Goodall arrived in the East African nation in 1957. There, an encounter with famed anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey, set her on course to work with primates.<\/p>\n Under Leakey, Goodall set up the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, later renamed the Gombe Stream Research Centre, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania. There she discovered chimpanzees ate meat, fought fierce wars, and perhaps most importantly, fashioned tools in order to eat termites.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans,\u201d Leakey said of the discovery.<\/p>\n Opinion: To avoid another pandemic, we must have more respect for the natural world<\/a><\/p>\n