My Life with the Chimpanzees

Inspired by a stuffed toy, Jane Goodall became the first woman to study chips in the wild and in the process made history.

As a child, Jane Goodall was given a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee, and she has said her fondness for this figure started her early love of animals. While others thought Jane would be terrified by the toy, she adored it and it inspired a life-long love of animals in her.

Jane dreamed of a life spent working with animals, and when she was twenty-six years old, she ventured into the forests of Africa to observe chimpanzees in the wild. During her expeditions she braved many dangers and she got to know an amazing group of wild chimpanzees—intelligent animals whose lives, in work and play and family relationships, bear a surprising resemblance to our own. Through her work at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania and her own Roots and Shoots program she has become a tireless advocate for animals and the planet.

As for that stuffed toy, Jubilee still sits on Goodall’s dresser in London.

Jane Goodall (1934–2025) began studying chimpanzees in the wild in Gombe, Tanzania, in 1960. After receiving her doctorate in ethology at Cambridge University, Dr. Goodall founded the Gombe Stream Research Center for the study of chimpanzees and baboons. In 1975, she established the Jane Goodall Institute to promote animal research throughout the world. In 1991, she founded Roots & Shoots, her global humanitarian environmental program. Dr. Goodall contributed to numerous documentaries and films and wrote twenty-seven books including In the Shadow of Man and Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey (with Philip Berman). In addition, she was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II, named a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and received many awards, including the prestigious Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her legacy continues with both the research and conservation programs she founded and the inspirational story of her life and work. For more information, please visit JaneGoodall.org.