Remembering Dr. Jane Goodall, a ‘True Environmental Hero’

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A Big Red veterinarian honors the pioneering researcher and former A.D. White Professor, who passed away in early October

By Robin Radcliffe

The first time I met Dr. Jane Goodall was backstage at Southern Methodist University in 1996, when she signed my copy of one of her children’s books. It would be the first of my three encounters with Jane—each of them memorialized by an inscription she wrote to me in that volume, The Chimpanzee Family Book.

Earlier that evening, she had invited me and the rest of the audience to join her, symbolically, atop a rugged trail in Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania.

We all followed Jane intently as she cupped her hands to her mouth. Her eyes grew big, and out came a hair-raising crescendo: “Hooo / hhaaa whooaa / oooo whoooaaa / oooo whoooaaa / oooo whoooaaa / oooo!”

It was a long-distance greeting call—the pant hoot—and it meant “hello” in chimpanzee. It was Jane’s way of welcoming her audience, us Homo sapiens.

The Cornell community, and the citizens of the world, lost a true environmental hero with her passing on October 1, 2025. She was a pioneering scientist, a messenger of hope, and a modern-day Dr. Dolittle.

In so many ways, Jane was the face of conservation and caring for wild animals everywhere, and for the human communities that live closest to them.

She was a pioneering scientist, a messenger of hope, and a modern-day Dr. Dolittle.

It will come as no surprise that she had a profound impact on the Cornell campus: first as a distinguished A.D. White Professor-at-Large, and later as my collaborator in a unique engaged learning and research program, Partnerships for the Planet, that continues to inspire undergraduate and professional students.

I’ll never forget the day that Jane said to me, matter-of-factly and with conviction, “Yes, Robin—I will write a foreword to your book!”

I had written and illustrated The Hornless Rhinoceros for the young people of Indonesia. But as a wildlife veterinarian determined to help save Earth’s most endangered rhinos, I had become disillusioned.

Rhinos do us no harm; after all, they are herbivores. Indeed, in captivity a rhino is as gentle and forgiving as man’s best friend. They will close their eyes when you caress their leathery chin and roll over like a big dog if you dare to scratch their rubber-tread tummy.

Jane had shown me that animals have minds, emotions, and personalities. Yet Earth’s five surviving species of rhino were under attack by humans for no other reason than they were born with a horn on their nose.

In 1986, Jane had left Gombe to devote her energies to protecting chimpanzees and other wildlife by educating people. And just as she’d had to leave the forest and devote herself to advocacy, I’d learned that medicine and science were no longer enough to save the rare rhinoceroses I cared for.

Much like the beloved title character in Dr. Dolittle—whom she emulated as a child growing up in the south of England—Jane learned to speak “chimpanzee” and upturned science by giving them names, not numbers, and showing the world that these sentient animals are not unlike our own species.

With no formal education, she had ventured into the forests of Gombe at the invitation of her mentor, Dr. Louis Leakey. In her day, it was highly unorthodox for a woman to conduct field studies in science—especially those that demanded remote and arduous field work.

Jane persisted, and the chimps eventually accepted the “white ape” (as she referred to herself), giving her a front-row seat to a spectacular, and heretofore unknown, world of chimpanzee society.

Jane had shown me that animals have minds, emotions, and personalities.

Her observations would change the face of science forever. Perhaps her most famous discovery—that chimpanzees use tools—would reshape what it means to be human, prompting Leakey to pen his now-famous telegram:

“Now we must redefine tool—STOP—redefine man—STOP—or accept chimpanzees as humans—STOP."

Jane soon graced the cover of National Geographic, and the world took notice. Her tireless work to save the chimpanzees and their forest home would land her on Cornell’s doorstep as an A.D. White Professor. She was particularly fond of the appointment, because she enjoyed the robust discussions with bright, highly motivated students. (And Dr. Leakey had held the same title from 1966–72.)

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With support from Cornell’s Einhorn Center for Community Engagement, it facilitates research to further conservation of great apes and rhinos (including our studies of transporting the latter more safely by hanging them upside down, which won an Ig Nobel Prize).

The collaboration also gives Cornell students unique learning experiences with Jane Goodall Institute scientists and partners in Uganda, the Republic of Congo, Namibia, and Indonesia.

She was particularly fond of the appointment as an A.D. White Professor, because she enjoyed the robust discussions with bright, highly motivated students.

Two decades after our first meeting at SMU, Jane penned her second entry in my book, marking our new endeavor.

“For Robin—20 years later. I am so glad we have connected—partnered—to save the wild places, animals and improve health. Fantastic and thank you. Together we can change the world!”

This fall, just a week before her death, Jane gathered with Cornellians at a natural history gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to commemorate our enduring partnership. It would be both a celebration and a fond farewell.

Among those in attendance was my former student Montana Stone ’19—now a PhD candidate at Brown—who met her longtime hero for the first time that night.

“For many of us in conservation science, Jane’s life’s work is more than research; it is a compass pointing toward humility, curiosity, and responsibility,” Montana observes. “What I remember most from the evening is not only her unwavering commitment to conservation, but the gentleness with which she carried herself. She was kind, giving her time to everyone who asked, and she was strong—offering words of hope even amid today’s environmental challenges.”

This fall, just a week before her death, Jane gathered with Cornellians to commemorate our enduring partnership. It would be both a celebration and a fond farewell.

Following a touching tribute by President Mike Kotlikoff, Jane began her story.

In a voice both calming and full of a warrior’s determination, she recounted her life, including the powerful connections to the Cornell community. She smiled brightly as she spoke of her years as an A.D. White Professor.

And then she paused and said with a giggle: “I truly was a professor-at-large, as I would bounce around from the forests of Gombe to visit Cornell for a few days to give talks about chimpanzee behavior and meet with curious students … then I would be off again on lecture tours around the world.”

My discussions with Jane in her later years often centered around hope and how our collective vision for a better world for all species might carry on after she was gone.

The missions of Cornell and of the Jane Goodall Institute are closely aligned: for the University, “to do the greatest good” and for the Institute to do “good for all.” They each, in their own way, give a voice to every human, every animal, and every community; together we strive “to do the greatest good for all.”

Jane’s last message to me—the third penned inside the book—was prophetic: “Together we can make this a better world for ALL life. We must. Love, Jane.”

We hugged, as chimps do, in greeting. In chimpanzee talk, there is no “goodbye.”

The Veterinary College’s Robin Radcliffe is an associate professor of practice in wildlife and conservation medicine who focuses his research on the conservation of endangered animals—from rhinos to Arctic falcons. Also the author of the book Canoeman Joe, he holds a DVM from the University of Minnesota and is a Diplomate of the American College of Zoological Medicine. He hopes to someday realize his and Dr. Goodall's shared dream of establishing a professorship in her name at Cornell.

Top: Goodall with Motambo, an orphaned chimpanzee, in the sanctuary she founded in the Republic of Congo. (Courtesy of the Jane Goodall Institute)

Published October 22, 2025

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Comments

1. 

   Thomas

   22 Oct, 2025

   I hope the Jane Goodall Professorship becomes a reality at Cornell. It would be such a feather in the university’s cap to have the only named professorship in her name.

   Reply

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