October 2, 2025, 2:49 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
Jane Goodall was the most famous primatologist in the world. Yet the woman who gave chimpanzees a voice had to fight her way through a male-dominated science field—and she loved not only Africa’s wildlife but also her dogs, who were her lifelong loyal companions.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall (April 3, 1934 – October 1, 2025) began her life’s work in 1960 at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. Without an academic degree, armed only with curiosity and an open mind, she ventured there, facilitated by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey.
By her side: her mother, who supported her daughter in a scientific world that barely took women seriously at the time. From this outsider emerged the world’s most recognized primatologist. She earned her Ph.D. from Cambridge in 1966, as one of the few who did not need a bachelor’s degree for it.
Jane Goodall Showed Us How Much We Misunderstand Animals
Her observations revolutionized behavioral biology: Goodall demonstrated that chimpanzees use tools, hunt, wage wars, form friendships, mourn—in short, that they have personalities.
She persevered against resistance—because she did not number animals but gave them names: David Greybeard, Flo, Frodo. What many researchers criticized as unscientific was, in truth, her greatest gift to science: empathy. Jane Goodall taught the world to see animals as more than just test subjects.
Besides chimpanzees, it was especially dogs that captured her heart. As a child, she received the plush chimpanzee “Jubilee” from her father, but she often said: Dogs were her favorite animals. They lived with her, accompanied her, comforted her. This understanding of love for animals flowed into her work and made her voice so unique worldwide.
A Life for the Animals
Jane Goodall was not just a researcher. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977, the youth program “Roots & Shoots” in 1991, fought against factory farming, for climate protection, and for forests. From 2002, she was a UN Messenger of Peace, and in 2025, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Until old age, she traveled nearly 300 days a year to speak for animals and the environment.
Her life’s work is immense, her influence immeasurable. And yet she was always the woman who, from the beginning, stood up against ridicule and doubt, who taught in a man’s world that science cannot exist without heart.
Jane Goodall died on October 1, 2025, at the age of 91 in Los Angeles, during a lecture tour. What remains is a legacy that will shape generations—and the thought that compassion can be as scientific as data and numbers.