Now, the scientific establishment is reeling from the loss of a great scientist.
Adrian Smith, president of the Royal Society, described her as “an amazing scientist who inspired people to see the natural world in a new way”.
Roger Highfield, from the Science Museum in London, which awarded Dr Goodall a fellowship earlier this year, called her an “inspiration”.
“She was formidable and it’s incredibly shocking news, because she completely changed how we think about other species and how we think about ourselves – she challenged human exceptionalism,” he said.
Jane Goodall eventually turned her focus from her chimpanzees to spreading the word about protecting nature.
When she spoke to me for BBC Inside Science in 2024, she was promoting a tree-planting and habitat restoration mission that her eponymous foundation was carrying out in Uganda.
“We still have a window of time to slow down climate change and loss of biodiversity,” she said at the time. “But it’s a window that’s closing.”
Prof Hobaiter, one of the many scientists Dr Goodall inspired, told me: “Jane would be the first person to tell us that what the world needs right now is not sadness over her loss, but to get to work.
“We all have a lot to be getting on with to make sure that we are not the last generation to live alongside wild chimpanzees.”
