Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Famed Primatologist Jane Goodall, Scheduled to Speak in Pasadena This Morning, Dies at Age 91

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Famed primatologist Jane Goodall, who was scheduled to appear at an event Wednesday Pasadena, has died at age 91 from natural causes.

According to the Jane Goodall Institute, she “passed away due to natural causes.”

Goodall had been scheduled to speak at a late-morning event at EF Academy in Pasadena to announce a student-led effort to plant more than 5,000 trees in the fire-ravaged Pacific Palisades and Altadena communities over the next three to five years.

“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. I just talked to her on the phone a few hours ago,” said longtime associate Margarita Pagliai, head of school for Seven Arrows Elementary School and Little Dolphins Pre-School in Santa Monica, who was at the Pasadena event.

Pagliai was preparing to introduce Goodall at the tree planting event just before a representative of the Jane Goodall Institute announced her passing.

“She will always be here with us, and she wouldnt want us to cry”, said Pagliai.

The effort, known as TREEAMS, was a partnership including EF Academy Pasadena, Saint Mark’s School in Altadena and dozens of other schools, along with organizations such as UCLA School of Education, SoLa Foundation and EcoRise.

The program went on as scheduled without Goodall.

Afterwards, LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger joined Pasadena Councilmember Rock Cole and school leaders to plant trees as scheduled. They dedicated the trees to the memory of Goodall.

Goodall served as the Grand Marshal of the Rose Parade in 2013. She was selected to lead the 124th Tournament of Roses Parade, with the theme “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

“She was in California as part of her speaking tour in the United States,” according to a statement posted on social media by the Jane Goodall Institute. “Dr. Goodall’s discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.”

In a prepared statement issued before the event, Goodall said, “The TREEAMS movement represents the very best of what young people can achieve when they come together with courage and compassion. By planting trees, they are helping restore ecosystems, combat climate change, and bring healing to communities in need.”

Shawna Marino of EF Academy told Pasadena Now in an email the tree-planting program “is an important part of (Goodall’s) incredible legacy.”

Goodall, a lifelong advocate for the protection of endangered species, is best known for immersing herself into the habitat of chimps in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park in the 1960s, documenting the personalities of individual chimpanzees and their human-like characteristics.

Only in her 20s at the time, Goodall gained fame for the close relationship she formed with the chimps she was studying, even finding herself accepted as a member of a particular group of the animals for nearly two years.

In 1977, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization that “empowers people to make a difference for all living things.”

In 1991, she worked with a group of students in Tanzania to form Roots & Shoots, which is the Institute’s global environmental and humanitarian youth program.