Dr. Jane Goodall, known for being a conservationist and animal welfare advocate, has died.
She was 91.
Goodall was the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, per People.
She spent decades studying chimpanzees in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park.
According to a statement on Wednesday from her eponymous institute, she died of natural causes. She was no a speaking tour in California.
She is survived by her son, Hugo, and three grandchildren.
“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” her institute said.
“We have learned so much,” she told People in 2020. “We’ve learned how alike chimpanzees are to us, which has changed science perception. In the early 1960s, I was told that the difference between people and animals was one of kind. We were on a pinnacle, and there was an unbridgeable chasm between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.”
Based on her observations to the contrary, “that reductionist way of thinking began to crumble and now we have a different way of thinking about our relationship with all the other animals,” she said.
“Hopefully, we can begin a new era of our relationship with other animals. But we’re not there yet.”
She was named a UN Messenger of Peace in 2002. Goodall also worked to protect chimpanzees from extinction. No doing so, she was one of the most beloved figures the world has ever known.
