Famous Zoologist Dr. Jane Goodall Passes Away at 91 years old
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On Oct.1, in Los Angeles, California, 91-year-old zoologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall passed away peacefully in her sleep from natural causes. She had been in Los Angeles on a speaking tour around the United States and was scheduled to speak in Pasadena to 1,000 students from Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and other schools.
Through 60 years of work, she made revolutionary scientific discoveries, established wildlife sanctuaries and reforestation projects, and became a role model for many around the globe.
Born in England, Goodall grew up loving animals, and after reading stories about Tarzan, she dreamed of one day living in the African wilderness, according to Spectrum News. In 1960, the 26-year-old turned her childhood dream into a reality when she began to research chimpanzees in Tanzania, which she would continue to do for over six decades.
She was fascinated by the chimps’ behaviour, from how they acted amongst one another to their pristine instincts. Through her studies, she made revolutionary discoveries about chimps, including that they sculpt their own tools to use and are omnivores who hunt. Moreover, she found that chimps were similar to humans, as they also had complex social behaviours and personalities. In fact, the more she got to know them, the more they felt like family to her.
Throughout her career, Goodall faced backlash from critics who disagreed with her field work or even discriminated against her for being young and female. Despite this, she continued to do what she loved most: studying chimps with her binoculars in nature.
Overall, Goodall devoted her life to animal conservation efforts and spreading a message of peace and understanding, and has proved herself to be an amazing role model for youth to look up to. In 1977, she founded “The Jane Goodall Institute" to support her research and to scale up conservation efforts for chimpanzees and their habitats. Goodall also co-founded the “Roots & Shoots” program with a group of Tanzanian students in 1991, which has empowered hundreds of thousands of young people worldwide to take action to protect our planet.
In 2012, she became an ambassador for Disney’s Nature Film Studio. Then, in 2022, a Barbie doll was made in her likeness to honour her. According to Yahoo News, she was elated to learn that Barbie was going to be made and thought it was an excellent idea.
"Actually, I've been suggesting [...] for a long time that girls don't want just to be film stars and things like that, but many of them — like me — want to be out in nature, studying animals," Goodall shared.
Throughout her lifetime, she has won many awards, earned multiple honorary degrees, and was even awarded a PhD in ethology from the University of Cambridge. Goodall has published 32 books, 15 of which were for children. Just this year, she was awarded a medal for freedom by former US President Joe Biden. She was also the subject of 40 films, including a 2020 documentary series for National Geographic called The Hope. Moreover, her novel In the Shadow of Man, a recount of her original field studies, was translated into 48 different languages and was popular around the globe.