‘No one of her stature’: Conservationist Jane Goodall remembered in Canada

TORONTO – Jane Goodall is being remembered by Canadians as irreplaceable in her environmental work. 

The Jane Goodall Institute announced Wednesday that she had died of natural causes while in California during a U.S. speaking tour. She was 91. 

Born in London in 1934, the conservationist was renowned for environmental advocacy that started with her field research on chimpanzees in what is now Tanzania. 

Goodall spent months observing the animals, watching them use tools and do other activities that were previously believed to be exclusive to human beings. 

Her documented observations also noted the animals each had distinct personalities, and her discoveries went on to transform how the world perceived the emotional and social complexity of all animals through several documentary and magazine features. 

Kerry Bowman, an environmentalist and bioethicist at the University of Toronto who had a years-long friendship with Goodall after they started working together on a documentary, says there is “no one of her stature” doing conservation work like Goodall did. 

“Jane Goodall as a human being is just simply not going to be replaced,” Bowman said in an interview Wednesday. “She was very worried about authoritarianism (and) completely walking away from climate goals. She was a person many people would listen to and she’s gone. So it leaves a huge hole.”

Goodall is known in Canada for backing a Senate bill put forward by then-senator Murray Sinclair that sought to ban keeping elephants and great apes in captivity unless it was for the animals’ best interests, and would also ban importing elephant ivory and hunting trophies. 

That bill passed through the Senate last December. It was one of several bills that were thrown out when Parliament was prorogued in January, but Culture Minister Steven Guilbeault — who served as environment minister under the previous Justin Trudeau government — says the government is looking for ways to reintroduce the bill. 

“We feel that this is an important issue to keep moving forward on,” Guilbeault told The Canadian Press. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney paid tribute to Goodall on social media on Wednesday, calling her a “tireless guardian of nature.”

“Dr. Jane Goodall changed the way we understand animals — and our own humanity,” Carney wrote. “Her advocacy inspired generations and her research revolutionized the field of biology.”  

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2025. 

— with files from The Associated Press