Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Negra still hasn’t taken the plunge and entered her cabin. I’m sure she’ll get there in time, but for now she prefers not to wander too far from the safety of the building. Here she is a few feet outside the greenhouse foraging for chow this morning.
Burrito, on the other hand, spent some quality time in the cabin this morning. It’s hard to believe that this is the guy who used to be too scared to enter the greenhouse – now he’s mastering two acres!
Earlier, Burrito was sitting at the door to Young’s Hill and appeared to be thinking about going out there but couldn’t seem to make up his mind. He and I started playing a little game of chase and tickle, but after a little while he walked into the greenhouse and sat next to Foxie. Foxie was laying on her back holding a string of troll dolls above her head. She waved them around a little bit and started playfully spinning on her back. Burrito was still quietly sitting beside her, pretending not to notice. Burrito is very shy and sometimes seems to not want you to know that he wants to hang out when I think he really does. Occasionally, he’ll approach someone (caregivers usually) and seemingly pretend to be doing something else like foraging for food, when in reality, I think he just wants to get a little closer so you will initiate a game of tickle or chase. Foxie must have been completely aware of what Burrito was doing, because she all of the sudden popped up and started poking and tickling Burrito. Pretty soon, they were wrestling and laughing uncontrollably.
Burrito is on the right, Foxie is on the left, poking Burrito’s side
He tried to steal Foxie’s string of troll dolls
but that didn’t last long
Look close at this next photo- Burrito is pinching Foxie’s ear.
Today was overcast but surprisingly warm. The chimps spent most of the morning on the hill. Missy was so happy!
I was watching Foxie and noticed that she did not have a troll doll with her. I thought, “that’s weird.” Then, I scanned the landscape and noticed that Jamie had a troll doll in her hand…
Less than a minute later, Jamie had climbed down from the structure.
Foxie approached her, pant-grunting (a submissive behavior). Jamie immediately handed Foxie the troll doll.
Then, Foxie turned and Jamie followed her up the hill.
This was the second troll doll exchange we’ve photographed in the last week (see Elizabeth’s post of the first exchange). Pretty fascinating!
For lunch, we decided spread out a forage of tomatoes, small peppers, Brussels sprouts on their stalks, lettuce and chow all over the two-acres. Foraging for food is serious business, and it’s what free-living chimps spent a lot of their time doing in the forests.
It’s awesome to see a whole group together doing what comes naturally, like in this photo below of Burrito (bottom right), Foxie (carrying the green-haired troll on her back), Jody (to the left of Foxie), Annie (bipedal) and Missy (on the structure). In case you’re wondering, caregivers do get very good at identifying chimps from behind – each backside is unique too, after all.
Jamie was off on her own collecting Brussels sprouts and peppers.
We scattered the food everywhere, including the top of the structures. Missy doesn’t need much motivation to climb.
Burrito’s motivation seemed to be to join Foxie
Once he was up there, he took in the view. The black and orange in the background is the hill that burned during the Taylor Bridge Fire in August.
Negra did a little bit more exploring of Young’s Hill this morning. She ventured out very confidently right when I opened the door and walked out to the nearest log structure. She sat down and seemed pretty comfortable to me, especially since I have only seen her in this spot a couple of times- the first only being last week.
After a little bit, she seemed to lose some of her confidence though and was looking for a little bit of reassurance from her friends.
And Jamie was happy to oblige
The reassurance from Jamie seemed to inspire Negra to be a little more adventurous and she went further than I’ve seen her go on the hill. She seemed very proud of herself.
I guess yesterday’s Jamie-ween party was just so exhausting, Foxie couldn’t help but take a big yawn. Here she is holding the Dora doll donated by Bailey as mentioned in yesterday’s blog.
