Remembering Dr. Jane Goodall: PETA’s 2025 Person of the Year
For devoting her life to reshaping how humans perceive our fellow animals, world-renowned primate expert, vegan, and trailblazing animal advocate Dr. Jane Goodall has been posthumously named PETA’s 2025 Person of the Year.
Dr. Goodall exemplified the compassion and determination necessary to drive positive change for the other animals with whom we should share this planet. From her groundbreaking research that reframed animals as “someone, not something,” to her outspoken compassion for all beings, she embodied everything that PETA stands for.
Who Was Dr. Jane Goodall?
Goodall, who passed away on October 1 at the age of 91, began upending speciesist notions about animals in 1960 when she documented tool use in chimpanzees—an ability previously believed to be uniquely human.
The gifted scientist—who said that her beloved childhood dog, Rusty, first taught her that “animals have personalities, minds, and feelings”—went on to become a champion for all animals.
After reading a copy of Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation—given to her by PETA Founder Ingrid Newkirk—Goodall went vegan, saying that the next time she saw meat, all she could see was “fear, pain, death.”
Through Dr. Goodall’s efforts to combat wildlife trafficking and habitat destruction, and her public promotion of vegan living, she showed us that individuals of other species possess personalities, minds, and emotions—and deserve protection, not exploitation.
Dr. Goodall also helped PETA expose a laboratory in Maryland that confined hundreds of chimpanzees to cramped, barren “isolette” chambers in a windowless room. Goodall became an outspoken critic of experiments on animals, calling her 1986 visit to the laboratory “the worst experience of my life.”
Dr. Goodall was dedicated to teaching everyone that animals feel love, joy, pain, and fear, just as humans do—and don’t deserve to be eaten, experimented on, or exploited for entertainment. She joined forces with PETA several times, like when she urged UPS to stop shipping hunting trophies, called for SeaWorld’s closure, and pushed for the shutdown of the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
How You Can Honor Dr. Goodall’s Legacy of Compassion
“All animals matter. Every animal is an individual, just as every human being is an individual, and all are deserving of our respect and our compassion and our care.” –Dr. Jane Goodall
To commemorate Goodall’s legacy of kindness, PETA dedicated a monkey puzzle tree and a plaque in her honor in its Bea Arthur Dog Park memorial garden beside its Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters. PETA UK will also be donating copies of Animal Liberation to every library in Goodall’s hometown of Bournemouth, England. The best way to honor Goodall’s memory is by following in her compassionate footsteps and going vegan.
