When I was a kid, I thought scientists were these cold lab-coat-wearing people who did equations all day. Then I learned about Jane. She didn’t do science that way. She went into the jungle with a notebook and binoculars, gave the chimps actual names (David Greybeard, Fifi, Flo) when everyone else insisted on numbers, and just… watched. Patiently. For years. And what she found basically made the scientific establishment spit out their tea.
Chimps use tools. They hunt. They have politics, friendships, grief, drama. In other words - they weren’t just animals. They were people, in their own chimp way. And if chimps are people, then we’re not as special as we like to think. Jane blew up that invisible wall humans had built between “us” and “them.”
And then, when she could’ve just coasted on being the chimp lady, she pivoted. She became an activist, built the Jane Goodall Institute, started Roots & Shoots to get kids involved, and spent the next half-century traveling the world telling anyone who would listen that we have a responsibility to protect life on this planet. Imagine being 80 years old and still doing 300 days of travel a year. I can’t even commit to finishing a Netflix series, and Jane was out there trying to save the Earth.
The thing I loved most about her, though, is that she never lost her sense of wonder. She wasn’t just collecting data - she was connecting. She treated science and empathy as the same thing. I think that’s why people listened to her.
Look, we live in a time when it feels like everything’s getting worse. Species are disappearing. Forests are shrinking. And scrolling your news feed makes you feel like there’s no point. But Jane never bought into despair. She always said there’s hope - not because things magically get better, but because we can make them better. She believed in us, even when we didn’t deserve it.
I don’t know what happens when we die. But I like to imagine Jane’s in a forest somewhere right now, reunited with David Greybeard, surrounded by the chimps she loved. And maybe she’s finally resting, knowing she did her part and then some.
Goodbye, Jane. You changed the way we look at animals, at nature, and at ourselves. And honestly? That’s more than most humans could ever dream of accomplishing.
