Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
It’s very rare to see Foxie without at least one doll keeping her company. In fact, when new volunteers are first learning to tell the chimpanzees apart, they can always tell Foxie by the troll doll or Dora the Explorer she’s carrying. She carried this Dora doll in her mouth for much of the afternoon.
The weather has been absolutely perfect today- warm sunshine, blue skies, and absolutely no wind (which is rare for spring in Cle Elum). As I was taking my afternoon walk around the hill with Jamie, all seven chimps came outside. Other than Jamie, who was fixated on making sure I kept up with her, the other chimps seemed pretty happy just relaxing in the sun and checking out the view. I was having a hard time not stopping to take photos of the other chimps without making Jamie impatient, but thankfully, she let me get a couple of Burrito.
But it wasn’t long before I was summoned to keep going. Our boss certainly knows how to keep our priorities in check.
If you can’t tell by now, I’m pretty excited about the iPad we got from Orangutan Outreach! Thanks to Jody for the case and mount, and Shelly for the iTunes giftcard, I’ve been able to load up the iPad with tons of apps that I’m excited to see the chimps interact with. Yay!
This morning, Jackie, myself, and volunteer caregivers Steph and Erin all spent awhile seeing how the chimps liked the iPad in its new case. Jody, Burrito, Foxie, and Jamie all came over to touch it and check it out (see this photo from our Facebook page).
Chimps naturally have super curious minds. When they see something new, usually their first reaction is what I sometimes call “quality control“—testing out how it works and if it’s sturdy. So, everyone who came over first tried to pick at the case (which is exactly why we wanted it in the first place!) but eventually they all showed some interest in the different apps, especially Jamie. Her favorites right now are a xylophone app, and one called “Catch the mouse” which is a game for cats! But she seems to get some enjoyment out of squishing the little mouse 🙂 Stay tuned for more updates on this really exciting project.
As J.B. mentioned yesterday in his post, we often remind ourselves that the chimps are experiencing even the simplest aspects of life for the first time at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.
It doesn’t make up for all the years she lost, but after almost five years at the sanctuary, Negra has experienced the peace of a good nap in a safe place with a blanket over her head for approximately 1,730 days. Every time I see her enjoying this peace, it makes me as happy as the first day she arrived and she “wore” her blanket.
Certain things about chimps are beyond our ability to measure, but I have no doubt that they share with us a sense of awe and wonder. Primatologists in the field have written about chimps going out of their way to stop and enjoy a sunset. We see the same thing when the chimps climb to the top of Young’s Hill and stare out at the valley below.
Jamie:
Missy:
Other times we see them stop and stare up at the sky. It could be something as simple as a bird flying by or the clouds passing overhead, but it often seems like something more profound, like an effort to take in the vastness of their new world.
Burrito:
Missy:
It’s in these moments that I have to remind myself where they came from, and to try to imagine what it must be like to still be discovering the most basic things about the world at nearly 40 years old.
Our human family is growing by leaps and bounds lately! As many of you know, Jennifer will be joining us starting next week. But we have a new addition today as well. I’m so excited to welcome Katelyn to our team. She is our new office manager, and I’m looking forward to her support and assistance as our no-longer-small organization continues to grow and expand. Katelyn already knows the chimps because she’s been a Level 3 volunteer for a while now. She’ll also be training on being a Lead Caregiver, so you’ll be meeting her as a new blog writer soon. In the meantime, feel free to welcome her here or reach her by email at [email protected]. Here she is this morning trying to make a good impression on her new bosses by giving them some gum.
With Foxie: 
And everyone knows this beautiful chimp below is the real boss of all of us:
Peering is an interesting part of chimpanzee culture. One chimp will get uncomfortably close to another and stare at them intently, usually with hopes to convince them to share whatever it is that they are eating or drinking. Occasionally the chimp being stared at will share, but sometimes they are excellent at just pretending not to notice that someone is 2″ from their face and will either completely ignore them or calmly turn away. It is so intense and makes me feel uneasy just watching it! Check out this video of a couple of older clips of peering that I found:
Annie peering at Negra munching on some cabbage leaves:
Foxie peering at Annie:
The reason I wanted to share a little insight into this behavior is because during the St. Patrick’s Day party, I caught an interesting interaction between Foxie and Annie. As part of their forage, I put out cups of yellow Gatorade and filled up a large bucket we have with diluted Gatorade for fun. Foxie immediately went over to sit by it, obviously in hopes to sneak a drink. But Jamie was foraging nearby, so Foxie seemed a bit uneasy taking a drink from the one and only giant tub of Gatorade without getting some sort of permission from the boss that it was okay (check out this video for how Foxie would normally do that). She sat there for a really long time with Jamie foraging nearby, and seemed very nervous, though Jamie seemed completely content without the bucket.
Then, Annie (surprisingly enough) confidently walked right over, picked up the bucket, and took a big gulp with Jamie and Foxie watching the whole time.
Foxie then intently peered at Annie, maybe in hopes that Annie would share her Gatorade or perhaps to see what the consequences were of taking a drink without permission.
Once Annie walked away, Foxie had gained the courage to take a drink for herself.
