Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for January 2016

PILO!

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Have you ever noticed a photo of the chimpanzees looking larger and “fluffier” than normal? Having hair that is pilo erect means that it involuntarily stands on end due to excitement, fear, or cold. Humans become pilo when we get goosebumps, and since we have less hair, it’s less obvious. Another example of piloerection is when a dog’s hackles go up. Looking to see if a chimpanzee is pilo or not helps caregivers gauge their arousal level. I perused through some of our old photos and videos to find some good examples of each chimpanzee demonstrating piloerection.

Foxie:
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Burrito spends a great deal of his time in a “fluffy” state, so it was very easy to find a pilo picture:
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Jody:
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Annie (possibly pilo because she is running through the cold):
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Jamie (about to display):
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Missy:
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I had a tough time finding a photo of Negra with pilo erect hair, but that’s because she’s usually in action during a fight. In the following video from a couple years ago, you can see Negra and others during a conflict. Watch for some good examples of piloerection:

The Complete Story

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It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is often true. But pictures are only snapshots of a single instant, and they often fail to provide perspective or context. If you saw this photo of Jamie:

jamie face

you might conclude that she is a depressed chimpanzee who lives in a small cage. But your conclusions would begin to be better informed if you also saw this photo of her wrestling and laughing with her friend Foxie:

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or this photo of her surveying her kingdom:

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These are all moments in Jamie’s life, and taken together, they begin to paint a picture of Jamie’s personality and her experience in sanctuary. But individually, none of them are the complete story. Jamie is a complex person made up of unique interests, personality traits, and life experiences. Like most of us, she is impossible to categorize, and she is full of contradictions. She is bossy and insecure, selfish and generous, serious and lighthearted, gentle and brutal. She does probably experience depression and feel confined at times, and she also experiences joy and freedom. She is sometimes sweet and sometimes a little mean-spirited and we love all of her.

This is equally true of all of the chimpanzees, and though we do our best to share a variety of perspectives on this blog over time, most of the time you are only seeing a snapshot in any given blog post. The snapshots we share are always honest snapshots, but they are never the complete story. We love the chimps we care for not because they are angels or victims or martyrs, but because they are each individuals who are amazing and flawed and perplexing. It’s one of our greatest joys to get to gradually discover their complete stories.

Chimpanzee Strength

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Chimpanzees are naturally incredibly strong. This physical strength, combined with their tendency towards sudden aggression that J.B. touched on in his blog post yesterday, cautions humans who work around chimpanzees to be very, very careful. This is why when you do a quick internet search on “chimpanzee muscle strength,” the resulting articles are often tied to a report on a human who was attacked by a chimpanzee.

The text of this article from 2012 after an attack is particularly helpful in providing information about why chimpanzees are so strong, explaining that the muscle fibers closest to the bones are much longer and more dense in chimpanzees than humans, presumably making those muscles much more powerful.

When the chimpanzees arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest in 2008, their muscles were atrophied or had never fully developed from lack of use, but all of the chimpanzees were still stronger (in many ways) than any of us humans could ever hope to be.

Jody Before
Jody on the day she arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

I often wonder what it felt like to use those muscles exploring their new sanctuary home. To feel them engage while running and climbing and displaying, and then to feel their strength building over time.

chimpanzees climbing

 

It must have felt both strange and exhilarating.

 

Here’s a tribute to respecting chimpanzee strength with some muscle shots of each of the chimpanzees at the sanctuary:

 

Annie’s shoulders:

Annie walking

 

We got a clear  view of Burrito’s chest muscles after he was shaved for his medical exam this past summer:

Burrito bare chest

 

Even petite Foxie has incredible upper body strength:

Foxie close-up arm muscles

 

Hanging like this doesn’t take much effort at all by Jamie:

Jamie hanging

 

Jody’s certainly not the most athletic chimpanzee, but, when motivated, she uses those muscles to get her where she wants to go:

Jody climbing

 

Same with Negra – she doesn’t tend to exert any more energy than necessary, but she’s pretty buff even under her more “squishy” parts:

Negra arm

Negra climbing

 

And then there’s Missy, who uses her muscles, particularly her strong legs, as often as she can:

Missy tightrope

Missy's leg

Today is in honor of “Best Buddies”

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Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by an anonymous supporter on his wife’s birthday in honor of “Best Buddies.” To our anonymous supporters, thank you so much! This is such a lovely sponsorship and in celebrating your best buddy, you honor the chimpanzees and those they hold dear, making it possible for them to experience life as they deserve. And we are immensely grateful for that. All of us here at the sanctuary wish you both a day of joy, comfort and love as you celebrate! And Happy Birthday!

Best buddies come in many forms and are not exclusive to human relationships. Whether on the go, at rest, or even having a disagreement, Annie and Missy are never far from one another’s side:

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Missy chase Annie

Missy Annie running behind

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Who’s in charge?

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One of the first things you realize when you begin working with chimps is that you are not in charge. We humans may have larger brains, but believe me, the chimps are just not that impressed.

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On a good day, they graciously allow us into their world as friends or playmates. On a bad day, we are unwilling participants (usually the victim) in their constantly unfolding social dramas. But most of the time we are merely spectators, forced to watch impotently from the sidelines.

Fights are a good example of this. If you’ve worked with chimps for a while, you can forget what it was like to witness your first fight – the piercing screams, bodies leaping and rolling and flailing across the enclosure, the huge canine teeth bared for all to see. The first time you see it, you wonder if anyone will come out alive. But after a while, you get used to it, and you start to differentiate between regular squabbles and the more serious fights based on the tenor of the screams alone. You get so immune to it, in fact, that during minor fights you don’t even bother looking up from your computer until you notice a new volunteer breaking out in tears and wondering how a group of people so heartless and unsympathetic could have ever been placed in charge of a sanctuary.

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The thing is, even if we wanted to intervene in a fight, there’s not a whole lot we could do. When chimps are fighting, they are intensely focused on the task at hand. When the potential for a life-threatening fight is high, as the case may be during social introductions, caregivers might try to break up a fight by spraying the chimps with a hose or firing a CO2 extinguisher into the air with the hope that the noise will distract them just long enough to get them separated. But most of the time, all we can do is stand by and assess the damage.

We often joke that it’s the chimps that run the sanctuary, not us, but there’s more than a bit of truth to that idea. Within these walls, we have no choice sometimes but to play by their rules.

Sunny Spirits

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This morning as we shoveled a pathway to one of the platforms on Young’s Hill, I could tell it was going to be well worth the effort. The sun was so warm and comforting that I knew there would be chimpanzees out on the hill the moment I gave them access to it. There is a certain infectious energy that spreads around the building when the weather is nice. The humans and chimpanzees alike thrive with this kind of atmosphere.

This morning a line quickly formed and everyone but Burrito (who later followed) and Negra (who basked in the greenhouse sun instead) were out on the hill at once.
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They all headed for the closest platform.
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Missy took up post at the top of the ladder with Jamie, Annie and Foxie underneath.
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Missy:
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Jamie:
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Jody spent a lot of her time on the ground eating snow. Here she sports a relaxed facial expression with a very drooped lip (classic Jody face).
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Missy and Annie were last to come in for lunch because they were too busy spending time together on Young’s Hill. Here’s to great moods and more sunshine in 2016!
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