RIP Dr. Jane Goodall, 1934-2025 | Zoologist and consultant for Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Dr. Jane Goodall has passed away at age 91. Dr. Goodall was a zoologist and primatologist, and an influential figure in the development of Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the Disney Conservation Fund.
Attractions Magazine had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Goodall on Animal Kingdom’s 10th anniversary in 2008.
“I’ve actually been involved since before [Animal Kingdom] was open,” Dr. Goodall told us at the time, “and it’s wonderful to see a dream become a reality and that reality become increasingly better in its ability to reach out around the world.”
In the same 2008 interview, she also shared a heartwarming anecdote with us from the construction of Animal Kingdom:
I always love going back to the Tree of Life. I always remember the first time I saw it. It still had its scaffolding up. They hadn’t put the leaves on yet. So I got really up close to some of the animals at the top. Now you need binoculars!
At that time, there was no chimpanzee. They’d forgotten a chimpanzee. So by the next morning, there was a small one and the man who did all the modeling of the animals — he’s a genius — but then he asked for a photograph of my favorite chimpanzee, David Graybeard. David Greybeard, the only named animal on that wonderful tree, sits proudly in the doorway to the little theater and everybody sees him. He’s the only one with a plaque.
The tribute to David Greybeard the chimpanzee is currently inaccessible to guests as Disney prepares the Tree of Life Theater for its new show, “Zootopia: Better Zoogether!,” opening Nov. 7, 2025.
Joe Rohde, former Imagineer and creative director of Animal Kingdom, posted a tribute to Dr. Jane on Instagram, saying in part, “Jane had an inexhaustible capacity for Hope. But she was very clear about what Hope was… Hope is action. If we are to remember her, it is through this. Those things that we hope for….they happen not because we wish for them, but because we do them. And we are many. So do not lose Hope because a great tree has fallen. Roots and Shoots are everywhere.”
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