Jane Goodall, conservationist and worldwide primate expert, dies at 91

British wildlife conservationist Jane Goodall, who earned worldwide recognition as a leading expert on primates, died on Wednesday morning, the non-profit organisation she founded said. She was 91 years old.

She died of natural causes in California while on a speaking tour of the United States, the Jane Goodall Institute said in a social media post.

“Dr Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionised science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the institute said.

Goodall, born in 1934, developed an early fascination for wildlife that spurred her to move from England to Africa to understand the behaviour of chimpanzees, and then become a global advocate for ecological conservation.

She grew up in the English town of Bournemouth, and said her love for animals was sparked first by a toy gorilla gifted to her by her father, and subsequently, by books such as Tarzan and Dr Dolittle.

She travelled to Kenya by boat in 1957, where she met palaeontologist Louis Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey, Reuters reported. The meetings spurred her to work on primates.

Under Leakey, Goodall went on to set up the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in present-day Tanzania. At the reserve, she discovered that chimpanzees eat meat, engage in fierce warfare and even make tools that can help them eat termites. Till then, it was believed that only humans were intelligent enough to use tools.

In 1965, Goodall was featured on the front page of the magazine National Geographic, in an article about the emotional and social lives of primates, the BBC reported. Subsequently, the chimpanzees at Gombe Stream gained worldwide recognition, especially one named David Greybeard, after his silver streak of hair.

Goodall earned a PhD from Cambridge University, even though she did not have an undergraduate degree or prior scientific training.

She subsequently realised that she could not support chimpanzees without advocating for the protection of their habitat, and thus became a forest conservationist. She established the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977 to support research in Gombe Stream, as well as to promote conservation efforts throughout Africa.

Goodall travelled across the world to meet local officials in various countries and to speak to communities and social groups. She told British newspaper The Times in 2022 that prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she had not slept in the same bed for over three weeks since 1986.

Merely a week before her death, Goodall was interviewed in New York during her tour of the United States, the BBC reported. She was slated to speak at a sold-out event on October 3 in California.

Commenting on her death, the United Nations said she “worked tirelessly for our planet and all its inhabitants, leaving an extraordinary legacy for humanity and nature”.

Former United States President Barack Obama said that Goodall’s groundbreaking work on primates and the importance of conservation “opened doors for generations of women in science”.