Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.
Today Missy had more adventures in the fresh air. Jamie, Foxie and Annie were all outside too, but no one was playing with Missy. She ran inside and came right back out with this blanket. Instantly she had a game of chase going! I love the second picture – Jamie got the blanket away from Missy, climbed up the fencing, and then leapt off from about 6 feet up! I snapped the picture as she was almost to the ground.
Missy was enjoying a game of keep-away with Jamie and Annie today. First, she came running into the outdoor area with a bag over her shoulder. I don’t know what was inside – it may have been enrichment that the volunteers put out, or she may have stuffed the bag with coconuts. In any case, she was challenging the other girls to take it away from her. After going back inside, she reemerged with a single coconut, clutching it like an NFL running back. Missy and Foxie seem to be the only individuals who know how to crack coconuts, so I think Missy enjoys making everyone wait until she’s ready to open them.
Related captive chimpanzees are scattered all around the country. As some of you know, one of Foxie’s daughters, Angie, and one of Annie’s sons, Virgil, live at Save the Chimps. StC is the amazing sanctuary behind the take-over of the now-defunct Coulston Foundation, among other feats. The chimpanzees at StC’s New Mexico facility are gradually all “migrating” to the Florida facility. Our blog regular Candace was sweet to think of sponsoring Angie (in Foxie’s name) on the Great Chimpanzee Migration. Angie and Virgil are in the next group of chimps to make the trip, and are both still available for sponsorship. Help them get to Florida!
It must be human nature to want to put things, including humans and other animals, into discrete categories. We think of people as “kind” or “mean”, without allowing for all the gray area in between. That’s what confuses people about Travis, the chimpanzee who was killed recently after attacking a woman in Connecticut. How could an animal that lived for over a decade in a woman’s home suddenly become so spectacularly violent? It doesn’t sit well with people, so we try to explain it away. It must have been the victim’s haircut. She was holding a doll. Travis was simply defending his territory. He was protecting the woman who owned him.
I think its great that most people don’t blame Travis, and I think some of these things may very well have played a part in the attack. But if we really want to protect chimpanzees and the public, and ensure that incidents like this don’t happen again, we need to have a more nuanced understanding of chimpanzee behavior. The truth is that they just don’t fit into our neat little categories.
Chimpanzees can be incredibly violent, and not always for reasons we would consider noble. Chimpanzee communities have complex and ever-changing dominance hierarchies. Dominance is achieved through a number of means, the most obvious of which is violence. Here at the sanctuary, it is common for Burrito to charge through the enclosures for no apparent reason, hitting the girls as he goes. Why does he do this? Mostly to keep them on their toes, and to remind them who’s boss (or who thinks he’s boss). Whether he is conscious of this strategy or simply fulfilling an instinctual urge, I don’t know. Probably both. But its not what we would normally call “nice”. Recently, the girls had enough of this behavior, and they pinned him down and bit him all over his body. It was a brutal lesson for Burrito, but once again, its just part of chimpanzee life. Many conflicts are resolved through violence, and there’s nothing we can do to change that.
Pick up any book about wild chimpanzee communities, and you’ll read about young males violently overthrowing an old alpha male that wasn’t physically up to the fight anymore. Or about groups of males that patrol borders and kill individuals from neighboring communities that get a little too close. While many primatologists try to avoid loaded words like “murder”, that’s what it is.
If you’ve followed our blog, you’ve seen how gentle and peaceful chimpanzees can be. Every day, we interact with the chimpanzees in many ways – playing chase, exchanging grunts, grooming one another, allowing them to kiss the backs our hands, etc. But if you’ve looked closely, you’ve probably noticed that we are extremely careful in these situations. We never penetrate the caging with our fingers (if the chimps want to be groomed, they have to put their body up against the caging), and we keep our bodies far enough away from the caging that we can’t be grabbed or pulled in (if they want to groom us, they have to stick their lips or fingers all the way out). Why would we be afraid of our friends?
Frankly, in the chimp world, friends sometimes bite each other’s fingers off. No matter how close or friendly our relationships are with the chimps in our care, there’s no guarantee that they won’t hurt us. In fact, given enough unsafe interactions, you can guarantee that someone will get hurt. And that’s not fair to the chimps. Just look at what happened to Travis.
There are many lessons to be learned from Travis’ death, but the most important is that we simply shouldn’t put chimpanzees into situations where they can hurt someone. It is our responsibility to prevent these things from happening, not theirs.
I love the chimps I care for, and all of the chimps I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. I consider them friends as much as I do my human companions. But if we truly love them, we need to treat them with the respect they deserve, and that includes respect for their complex nature. Chimpanzees are fascinating, and I don’t blame people for being attracted by their similarity to us. But they are not meant for our world, any more than we are meant for theirs.
When I am feeling down, I think about the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees at CSNW and everything they have been through in their lives.
I am amazed and humbled that Jody, after decades of living in a small cage in a medical laboratory, after having seven babies taken from her, can still enjoy relaxing in the February sun, holding her feet:
and Foxie, who endured research protocols, five babies being taken from her, and periods of social isolation, can greet each day with the desire to play with her caregivers and her chimpanzee friends
and Missy and Annie, who spent years without each other, can decide to sleep in together, napping in the side-by-side nests they created in the playroom
When I think about my chimpanzee friends and their lives, I realize I have little to complain about. And, if I can remember to live for today as they do, each day should include relaxation, happiness, play and companionship.
A few weeks ago I was describing how we play chase with the chimps outside. Here’s a 1st-person video to give you a better feel for it (you’ll feel like you’re watching COPS!). As you can see, it’s impossible to keep up with Missy.
Although much of the coverage on the tragedy of Travis, the chimpanzee in Connecticut who mauled Charla Nash and was subsequently shot and killed, has been frustrating to say the least, there have been a couple of good interviews included in media items very recently which I wanted to share.
This video segment includes an interview from an expert at Save the Chimps Sanctuary in Florida.
This article adds more information to the bigger story. Here’s are a few excerpts from the article:
“A chimpanzee who was shot and killed earlier this week for mauling a Connecticut woman was the offspring of a chimpanzee who made headlines eight years ago when a Festus teenager shot and killed her…..
In 2001, Travis’ 28-year-old mother, Suzy, escaped from Connie Braun Casey’s farm along Highway CC near Festus…..
April Truitt, a primate expert who runs the Kentucky-based Primate Rescue Center Inc., said chimps are too wild to be privately owned. She put more blame on the Caseys for the Connecticut incident than on Herold. She said the Caseys should not have been breeding and selling chimps.”
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You can read my reaction to the mauling in this post from Tuesday. One aspect of this story that has not been getting enough coverage is how the demand for chimpanzee “actors” helps to fuel breeding operations like Connie Casey’s. Chimpanzees should not be pets, should not be used in entertainment, and should not be used in biomedical research. There is no legitimate reason for a chimpanzee breeding operation to exist.
Jamie and Burrito were both “raised” by humans for the first years of their lives and used as “entertainers” when they were young. When they became unmanageable like any chimpanzee would, they were put into biomedical research.
Thankfully they now live in a safe, secure, and social environment at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, but others like them are not in sanctuaries, and the tragedy of Travis will occur again if laws are not put into place to make the private ownership of chimpanzees and their use in entertainment illegal.
One immediate action that you can take is to urge your federal representatives to support the Captive Primate Safety Act which would make the interstate and foreign commerce of primates illegal. Learn more from the Humane Society of the United States.
