On Sunday, the chimps got to use the new door for the first time. We do our best to keep things interesting around here, but the facility itself doesn’t change that often, so the chimps are always very excited and very curious to see the improvements.
Anytime there is a major change, whether in the social group or in their environment, the chimps like to reassure each other and seek comfort amidst the excitement. You’ll notice a lot of greeting, hugging, and submissive behavior in this video (Foxie kissing Burrito, Jody greeting me with a “genital bounce”, Annie kissing Jody, Annie and Missy submitting to Burrito who is off-camera).
We serendipitously discovered that the chimpanzees appreciate having fire hoses hanging just outside the door. The hoses were there previously, but once we installed the door, many of the chimps used them to climb from the door up to the the platform outside without setting foot on the wet ground. That’s one of the strange things about caring for ex-lab chimps (any captive chimps, really). Wet ground is a fact of life for free-living chimps, but it can be unpleasant and even terrifying for individuals who have spent a lifetime indoors. We used to place tractor tires outside so that Foxie could use them as stepping stones, but now we’ll have to hang some more fire hose by the other door.
My mouth is hanging open . As a relative newcomer to following the blog, this is the first time I have seen THIS much interaction between all the chimps. This was like watching a play! Thank you for sharing!
Wow, they are really excited about it. Yippee!
That is quite something to see! Thanks for giving a commentary on some of their behavior, J.B. I like learning the things you point out this way. I would probably miss the significance of some of the things on my own. It looked like Negra was not too interested, sitting on the upper ledge most of the time. Howeever, Foxie and a couple of others seemed to be telling her it was all OK and exciting. Would you say that is what was happening?
Where was Jamie during all this? Was she there and I just missed her or did she have business to attend to else where?
Negra was interested, but she tends to stay out of the way when there’s a lot of excitement. Burrito was on the bench next to her, so I’m guessing that had a lot to do with the way Annie and the others interacted with her.
Jamie was the first one out the door (of course!). She spent the afternoon trying to take apart everything I had built. Luckily, I passed her test. She is also the one in the last segment of the video who climbs up the fire hose.
JB — As I’ve posted before, thank goodness you have Jamie there to do quality control. 😉
a joy to watch …
Well, I might have known! Ofcourse Jamie would be first out the door!
I love it! Seeing their excitement was such fun! Thanks for sharing. And J.B., every facility has to have a quality control individual and Jamie is obviously the best one for the job.
C’est à chaque fois très agréable de suivre les nouvelles aventures de Jamie, Jody, Negra et les autres… Ca fait tellement plaisir de voir des chimpanzés heureux bien qu’ils ne soient pas en liberté.
J’espère avoir bientôt la possibilité de vous aider à la mesure de mes modestes moyens.
Bravo pour tout ce que vous faites pour eux et bon courage !
Hey Claudine, can you translate Michele’s post for those of us who have limited French?
Their excitement is palpable and full of wonder and fun!!!! Good job JB passing the Jamie test, she’s a discerning task master!!!! It’s so much fun to watch such intersting and complex interactions.
Welcome Michele – we have multilingual blog!!!!
I’ll take a crack at the translation:
It’s very agreeable each time to follow the new adventures of Jamie, Jody, Negra and the others. it’s so pleasurable to see happy chimps even though they’re not in freedom.
I hope soon to be able to help you in my own modest way.
Bravo for all you do for them and good courage!
That segment contained more drama and intrigue than an hour soap opera!
I’ve never heard of a genital bounce greeting before. What is that all about?
Since many of the girls submitted to Burrito, where does that leave him the rankings?
Thank you for posting this! I’ll watch it many times!
yay! love it how they react to positive changes in their environment and the excitement it brings them. even if it’s just a new doorway.
Missy & Annie were so jazzed!
CSNW is awesome.
MS – To be honest, I’m not quite sure I completely understand the genital bounce behavior. Jody is the only one of the Cle Elum Seven that does it.
I believe the “genital bounce” that is seen in the wild usually involves an individual bobbing his or her genitals up and down on the hand of another individual. I’m pretty sure this occurs during greeting and reassurance. It could be that Jody is performing a variation of this behavior, made necessary by the fact that she is separated from us by caging, or it could be that the two behaviors are unrelated. Jody does “present” to her caregivers frequently (meaning she greets us rump first). Presenting can be sexual (an invitation), but it is also a submissive behavior, as is the case with Jody presenting to us.
Most of the girls submit to Burrito when things are exciting or tense – these are the times when Burrito is likely to fly off the handle and hurt somebody. But at other times, like during quieter feeding times, they treat him more like a subordinate. Its very complicated. Sometimes you have alpha males who are clearly dominant in all situations, but Burrito is not one of those guys. From my perspective, it seems like the girls submit to him when they fear imminent physical harm, but otherwise, he doesn’t command much respect as a leader.
I saw Jody “genital bounce” to Missy tonight. It’s the first time I have observed her do this towards another chimpanzee. Maybe she knew we were discussing it 🙂 It was definitely a submissive / seeking reassurance behavior – she also presented a bent wrist to Missy, which is a submissive gesture – see illustration here: http://www.discoverchimpanzees.org/behaviors/top.php?dir=Submission&topic=Wrist_Bend
Jody did this shortly after a brief conflict over food – Jamie started a ruckus in a successful attempt to get Jody’s piece of melon. After everyone was calm and Jamie seemed content and not really paying attention, I offered Jody another small piece of melon. Jody climbed down from the bench to get it and did the genital bounce and bent wrist toward Missy before coming over to take the piece of melon. Missy often sides with Jamie in these conflicts, so Jody was being smart to make sure Missy wasn’t going to get mad or get Jamie’s attention if Jody took the fruit.
You may have explained this somewhere else that I missed, but one of the chimps’ rearend was so huge and had what looked like a growth on it. Is this chimp okay?
This chimp is in oestrus and is ready to conceive. This swelling attracts males to mate with her.
Ann – Yes, she’s fine. As MS said, the ano-genital swelling does indicate oestrus, but there’s also a lot of natural variability between individuals in the size of the swelling. Annie’s swelling at its peak is only about one quarter the size of Jody’s. Jody’s sex skin also looks the way it does because of trauma. The sex skin is very fragile, and when it is injured it often heals in a deformed manner.
MS & JB: Is Burrito neutered and the girls spayed—or do you have to keep them separate? (I have dogs, so not sure this is the correct term for chimps!)
Ann – Burrito has had a vasectomy (as opposed to castration like they do in dogs). Missy and Foxie had hysterectomies for medical reasons, and the other girls are “intact”, for lack of a better term.