The legendary conservationist died of natural causes while staying in California, the Jane Goodall Institute confirmed in a post on Facebook on Wednesday.

'The Jane Goodall Institute learned this morning, Wednesday 1 October 2025, that Dr Jane Goodall DBE, UN Messenger of Peace and Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, has passed away from natural causes,' the post read.  

'She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States.

'Dr Goodall's discoveries as an ethologist transformed science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of the natural world.'

Dr Goodall is widely known for her groundbreaking work with chimpanzees, which began when she travelled to the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960.

Seventeen years later she founded the Jane Goodall Institute to support research in the Gombe park. It works to protect the species and supports youth projects aimed at benefiting animals and the environment.

Born in 1934 in London, Goodall grew up in middle-class Bournemouth and said that as a young girl the idea of her becoming a scientist was almost unthinkable. 

'There was no thought of becoming a scientist because girls weren't scientists in those days. And actually there weren't really any men going out there living in the wild.' 

So Goodall drew her inspiration from fiction and she developed two great passions: animals and Africa. 

Goodall also credited her mother, novelist Margaret Myfanwe Joseph, with encouraging her to pursue a career in the male-dominated field of primatology.

'I got my love of animals from the Dr Dolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels,' she said 2019. 'I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film and bursting into tears.'

Dr Goodall was just 26 years old when she travelled to what is now Tanzania with little more than a notebook and a pair of binoculars.

Goodall set out to meet the creatures she loved and this began 60 years of ground-breaking work to save them from extinction.

Going on to be a full-time primatologist and anthropologist she is considered one of the world's leading experts on chimpanzees.