She led a remarkable life and studied chimps for over 60 years. She first went to Gombe Stream National Park in 1960. She founded the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977.
Goodall’s legacy includes inspiring countless women to pursue careers in science and environmental activism.
How very sad. She was one of the people I looked up to in high school and played a significant role in my decision to pursue a degree in Zoology. While my interests shifted from primates to cetaceans, she remained an important leader in the field of Primatology. The fact that she was a woman was a big deal at the time, but I didn’t think it was strange for a woman to be a scientist. Why should I?
I remember geeking out so hard upon meeting her; that was decades ago, but even then she was a legend and an inspiration the world over.
Probably the best article on her I found:
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/459238450/jane-goodall-primatologist-dead-91
that is sad. She gave a presentation at my school in Europe in the early 90s. I had no idea how big a deal that was until years later.
a life well lived. memory eternal.
She’s left an incredible legacy.
She lived a great life in service of her values and devoted to bring public awareness to the need of conservation and impacts of climate change, as well as her specific contributions to understanding the behavior and intelligence of chimpanzees. One could scarcely ask for more from any legacy.
Stranger
Goodall looked at the world in front of her with her eyes open, saw what was there, and stubbornly reported it. We need more of that.
RIP, Jane. You did good.
She thought the Farside cartoon was funny, and even licensed it for shirts sold at the The Jane Goodall Institute:
https://www.cbr.com/far-side-jane-goodall-gary-larson-feud/
Brian
Sad 
She visited my school when I was a kid and inspired me to seek out an environmental career. Our Roots and Shoots club took her on a tour of our city back then and showed her our recycling infrastructure and such. Then I met her again, decades later, as an adult working for a natural history museum. She’s truly a force of nature, for nature, and will be fondly remembered… the sort of giant that appears but once a generation, if we’re lucky. But what a life well-lived!
That cartoon was the first thing I thought of when I saw the news.
(And man does that complaint letter give off strong “Karen” vibes.)
I first read that particular story in one of Larson’s The Far Side collection books, and it made me love and appreciate Goodall even more.
To a life well lived.
Goodall’s legacy unfortunately includes a late-life conversion to anti-GMO extremism.
Goodall fell for claims that eating GMO feed does “beastly” things to animals and is unsafe for humans, using terms like “horrors” and “poisons”.
Can you describe the cartoon?
That site wants me to disable my ad blocker and I ain’t gonna let myself in for a bombardment of ads forevermore.
Never mind. It was google-able.
I don’t think any of us have perfectly consistent or “scientific” values across the board. It’s lucky that few of us are subject to the level of spotlight that she had, where every belief would be scrutinized and torn apart…
And with GMOs, I don’t think it’s altogether that uncommon for even scientists to be a bit skeptical, especially around the precautionary principle and such and especially when Monsanto is involved…
It seems a bit of an unfair comparison to compare the scientific consensus around climate change and GMO when climate science is backed by historical evidence in the geologic record and GMOs are still a rapidly evolving field. There’s a lot of nuance and error adjustments in climate science too, but there our models can at least fall back to a “known good” state of the world as it was before industrialization.
GMOs are much newer, and while we can test limited effects in the lab, it’s much harder to correct errors in the field if we missed something – especially when it is so extremely profitized and often monopolized and non-transparent. One doesn’t need to be anti-scientific to believe that scientists are human too and subject to outside financial motivation or pressure, and thus perhaps needing additional scrutiny.
In any case, one doesn’t need to agree with all of her views to appreciate her legacy.
The picture of her as a young woman at that link is stunning. She lived a life of purpose. RIP Jane.
I only know who Jane Goodall is because of that Larsen strip.
I vaguely remember first knowing about from Nat Geo I believe. She was one of “Leakey’s Angels” with Dian Fossey and Birutė Galdikas (who I never remember to be honest.)
Dr. Goodall was the most famous of them, at least until “Gorillas in the Mist” came out, bumping Fossey’s fame a bit. Dr. Goodall also basically broke the old “humans are the only tool user” canard. She showed chimps making and using basic tools.