90th Birthday Queen Jane Goodall Lives in Childhood Home with Sister When She’s Not 'Busier Than Ever' Spreading Hope (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Dr. Jane Goodallturns 90 today!

The legendary conservationist is planning to celebrate her milestone birthday at a number of celebrations, including one in New York City on Wednesday, with a guest list that includesJon Stewart. EvenDave Matthewsplayed at a private party for her last week in San Francisco. “I can’t keep up with all these people in all these places!” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

But the beloved ethologist, who broke new ground with her trailblazing research on chimpanzees starting at age 26, doesn’t understand all the fuss about her birthday. “To be honest, I don’t feel any different from how I was last year at this time,” she tells PEOPLE.

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Jogging a few steps across the stage, she declared, to the audience’s great delight, “I’m still fit!"

As the audience at the sold-out event clapped and cheered, Goodall, in her characteristically humble manner, attributed her never-ending vigor to “good genes." Thanking her mother and father, she said, “I’ve been very lucky.”

She talked about how fortunate she has been in her career, starting with the unorthodox path she took to get to Africa. There, she earned the opportunity to study chimpanzees in their natural habitat at Tanzania’s Gombe National Park in 1960.

That October, she became the first person ever to observe chimpanzees making and using tools — something that scientists thought only humans could do.

She spent the next twenty years in Gombe, earning her Ph.D. in 1966 at Cambridge. In 1977, she founded theJane Goodall Institute,a non-profit wildlife and environmental conservation organization.

She says she planned to stay in Gombe “forever” until she went to a primatology conference in 1986 that changed the course of her life. “I left as an activist,” she says.

At the conference, she learned how quickly forests were being destroyed, killing chimpanzees and other animals, which also made it difficult for the people who live in these areas to survive.

“Finally, about eight years ago, the last chimpanzees of the 400 that were being used for experiments,” she says, were released into sanctuaries.

Little Down Time

Amanda Edwards/Getty

These days, Goodall spends about 300 days a year traveling and spreading her message of hope, focusing her talks on conserving the natural world and fighting the climate crisis.

“I’m busier than ever,” she tells PEOPLE. “I feel that I was put on this planet with a mission.”

When Goodall isn’t traveling, she lives with her sister, Judy Goodall, 86, in their childhood home on the south coast of England.

“It’s the house where we grew up,” she says. “We still have it as a family home. My sister lives there permanently. She’s four years younger than me, but our birthday is on the same day.”

At home, Goodall says she still likes to explore the same garden she did as a 10-year-old girl, when she would sit in her favorite tree and readTarzan of the Apes, one of her favorite books.

She likes to say she fell in love with the king of the jungle, “who married the wrong Jane.”

Much More To Do

Jane Goodall on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on April 13, 2023.Randy Holmes/ABC/Getty

Randy Holmes/ABC/Getty

Considering the state of the world and how the climate crisis is worsening, bringing with it destructive floods, droughts and hurricanes, she says she is working harder than ever to try to save the planet and encourage people to take action.

“We do have a window of time, but unless we get together and take action, it will be too late,” she says.

In February, she announced that the Jane Goodall Institute had teamed up with theBezos Earth Fundto protect forests and biodiversity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, a region that is key to helping slow climate change.

She will also continue to work with the Jane Goodall Institute’s popularRoots & Shootsprogram, which encourages young people in 70 countries to care for the earth.

“We depend on the natural world for everything,” she says. “It’s like a beautiful tapestry, and all the threads are interconnected. As each species vanishes from this ecosystem, eventually it will collapse.

“So we must give young people hope,” she adds.

On her birthday, fans are encouraged to do good in Goodall’s name.

Click hereto donate to the Jane Goodall Institute to help her protect the planet.

source: people.com