Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-renowned primatologist and chimpanzee expert, has died.
She was 91.
The news was released in a statement by the Jane Goodall Institute, which said she died from natural causes while on speaking tour in California on Wednesday.
“Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” the statement said.
Goodall, who is also a UN Messenger of Peace, was considered the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, having studied the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees for over 60 years.
She first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960 and founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a global non-profit wildlife and environment conservation organization, in Washington, DC in 1977.
The institute’s stated mission is to improve the treatment and understanding of primates through public education and legal representation, to protect their habitats in partnership with local communities and to recruit and train young people for these missions.
This story will be updated.