Scientist, Global Activist Jane Goodall Died At 91

Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall died at the age of 91, the institute she founded said on Wednesday.

In a social media post, the Jane Goodall Institute said that Goodall died of natural causes while she was in California as part of a speaking tour.

She had turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, Reuters reported.

“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 institute said on Instagram.

According to a report by Reuters, the primatologist-turned-conservationist spun her love of wildlife into a life-long campaign that took her from a seaside English village to Africa and then

across the globe in a quest to better understand chimpanzees, as well as the role that humans play in safeguarding their habitat and the planet’s health overall.

Born in London in 1934 and then growing up in Bournemouth on England’s south coast, she was a pioneer in her field, both as a female scientist in the 1960s and for her work studying the behaviour of primates.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting the research in Gombe as well as conservation and development efforts across Africa. Its work has since expanded worldwide and includes efforts to tackle environmental education, health and advocacy.