Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for March 2016

The Art of Grooming

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Grooming is a standard activity here at the sanctuary. Usually, the chimpanzees groom one another. Some of the chimps enjoy being groomed by their caregivers. Jamie, though, likes to be the one doing the grooming. For safety reasons, the chimps don’t have the same level of physical access to their caregivers as they do to one another, so when Jamie wants to groom a caregiver she grabs a tool.

Jamie is fascinated by humans and often uses her tool to explore as much of us as she can. She removes dirt from the bottom of our shoes, checks our fingernails, and tries to remove buttons from our clothes or undo zippers or velcro. She pays special attention to any wounds, scars, or tattoos.

Incurring the Queen’s Wrath

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Negra doesn’t pull any punches. She knows exactly what she’s willing to put up with and exactly what she isn’t and she has no problem letting you know where she stands. When we humans do something to displease her she typically threat barks at us, hits the caging, and if we’re in the greenhouse she throws (repeatedly and with force) bark mulch in our faces. If there is a chimpanzee equivalent to swearing, I am pretty sure we hear a lot of profanity directed our way. This in turn usually elicits the quick back-up of her chimp family against the offending human. What would we do to displease our beloved Queen Negra that would call for such reprimands you might ask? Oh, things like offer her something during meals that she already told you she doesn’t want. Serve something stupid when there is obviously a better choice right in front of us, like lettuce or night bags. And sometimes just hand her something she actually asked us for!

Over time, Negra has chosen to interact with her caregivers more and more. And given her particularly heartbreaking history, that’s no small gift. Negra loves us to dance for her and typically nods her head and taps the ground along with us. That said, if she suddenly decides our dancing skills aren’t up to par she gives us a disgusted wave of dismissal and turns her head away. Negra also frequently pushes her lips through the caging to offer us kisses and while we would never miss an opportunity to offer the back of our wrist for a Neggie kiss, it’s truly 50/50 as to if you’ll get a kiss or a sharp poke and a threat bark. As I type this Negra is clacking her teeth against the caging and clapping loudly to alert us to the fact that it is dinner time (and in her mind it has been for the last hour).

Negra is akin to the sharp-tongued, intolerant, sometimes a little bit scary older family member who tells it like it is and yet, you can’t help but love her all the more for it. And none of this means that Negra doesn’t have the most endearing, sweet side as well. Like most of us I suppose. We are thrilled she finally gets to have her say, speak her mind, and be heard with love and respect. Even if it does mean picking bark mulch out of places bark mulch has no business being for days afterward.

Beautiful Negra:

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The morning routine

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The mornings at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest are always full of hungry chimpanzees expecting breakfast and caregivers getting down and dirty with cleaning activity. Today I thought I’d pull back the curtain for some behind the scenes photo blogging of a step-by-step guide to the a.m. routine at the sanctuary. You may notice a lot of pictures with the chimpanzees behind caging, and unfortunately that is the reality of any captive primate (even one in a nice sanctuary). Please check out Diana’s blog Why are the Chimps in Cages? from several months ago if you have questions about what you might see.

First thing in the morning comes breakfast preparation. Breakfast is made up of a fruit smoothie (with protein powder added), peanuts (mostly to motivate Negra out of bed), 2 kinds of fresh fruit, chewable vitamins, and two small bags of primate chow for each chimpanzee.
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The first area we generally try to clean in the morning is the Greenhouse. Since humans never go into any of the enclosures with the chimpanzees, caregivers ask the chimps to shift into a different area and staff members operate remote controlled doors to securely lock the chimpanzees out of an area that we wish to clean.

In this photo, volunteer Lizz serves a banana slice to Missy as a morning snack in the Playroom. Shortly before this photo was taken, I operated the doors to close off the Greenhouse for cleaning.
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As part of CSNW’s safety protocol, staff and cleaning volunteers are trained to double check that the Lead Caregiver (the staff member who is operating doors for the day) has closed and locked the proper doors and the chimps are in the right areas so we can safely enter an enclosure without their presence. Here Lizz is double checking the lever and lock controls for one of the doors used to close off the Greenhouse.
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Once an area is deemed safe to enter by the Lead Caregiver and at least one other fully trained individual, the cleaning begins!
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After an area is cleaned, we replace the dirty blankets and enrichment with new items. Here volunteer Kaylen puts out a fresh blanket and a stuffed primate.
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We remove all cleaning supplies and personal belongings from the area before we lock up the human access doors and let the chimpanzees shift into the clean area (again a staff member operates the doors using a remote controlled lever and lock).

After the greenhouse is cleaned, it’s time for the rest of breakfast! We take the opportunity of the breakfast excitement to close off the Playroom area for the next round of cleaning.
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During breakfast, the Lead Caregiver will also make sure that Young’s Hill is secure so the chimpanzees can have access to it. Here Jody peers out the newly open door to the Hill (notice she is still finishing up her bag of primate chow from breakfast).
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When deemed a “safe for humans to enter” area, caregivers will attack the Playroom by sweeping, spraying, scrubbing and squeegeeing their way to a fresh sparkling clean enclosure!
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During cleaning, the chimpanzees alternate between napping and supervising.

In this photo, Jamie watches us clean from her nest in the Front Rooms (her current purple boot obsession laying next to her).
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This morning, Missy checked out our work from a window in the Greenhouse.
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After the chimpanzees shift back into the Playroom, it’s time for the last round of enclosure cleaning (the Front Rooms). And last,but certainly not least, comes lunch!

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Jamie’s Weakness

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Jamie does not exhibit vulnerability often. She is in complete command of herself and everyone else at all times, and what she sometimes lacks in confidence she makes up for in bluster. In her relationships with humans and other chimps, she rarely lets her guard down.

But Jamie has one weakness: men. Men make Jamie as close to googly-eyed as she ever gets. Our personnel at the sanctuary have always skewed heavily female. Out of our six staff members, one is male. Out of our 42 current chimp house volunteers, five are male (which is the most we’ve ever had at one time). Jamie’s behavior around these male volunteers would be recognizable to anyone who’s ever had a crush.

This morning volunteer Yuri was here and Jamie split her time between staring at him and trying to get his attention. Here she is trying to catch a glimpse of him working in the kitchen:

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Purple boots and Missy’s stance

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It all started with Jamie insisting we go for a walk around Young’s Hill. For those of you new to the blog, Jamie chimpanzee loves for us humans to wear her favorite boots and join her on her perimeter patrols (humans on one side of the electric fences, Jamie on the other). I did the usual, trying to guess which ones she wanted me to put on. After a few failed attempts, Elizabeth and I figured it out. She wanted the purple pair, her newest and currently, most favorite boots (thanks Kimber!). So, I grabbed them from the sink where they were being cleaned and rinsed them off. Before I could even tell her they were too wet for me to put on, and that I would just be carrying them, she was gone. I walked out the door to the other side of the fence to join her. She’d already made it most of the way up one side of the hill by that time. She waited for me to catch up before continuing on her perimeter patrol.

When we got back to the Greenhouse, she made the gesture that she wanted to see the boots for a little grooming.
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Meanwhile, Missy was busy, running back and forth from the top of the hill back down and then from one side to the other. She stopped every so often to look back over her shoulder, perhaps to see if there was something she missed while she was running. I watched her for a bit and caught her in the following stance and wondered what she was looking at. Perhaps, she was practicing her stance She looked pretty intent on something. What could it be?

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Of course!!! It was her dear friend Annie running up the hill towards her.
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A game of chase ensued, all the way back to the Greenhouse.
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Missy’s Green Pepper Play

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The chimpanzees have had many bell peppers donated from a local grocery store lately, so today we did an exciting whole pepper forage on the hill!

 

Missy made a play for two of the peppers:

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Jody made an attempt to force a turnover:

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But Missy drove to the end zone:

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Once the play was complete, she checked for injuries:

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And then sat back and enjoyed her touchdown:

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This post was inspired by one of the new personalized stones that is part of the Dr. Mel Richardson Memorial Walkway!

Jordan Hill Foundation

Thanks Jordan Hill!

Distractions

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Caring for chimpanzees is harder than you will ever know. All we want to do is work – we live to sweep, scrub, and spray down enclosures – but these chimpanzees keep coming along and distracting us. Here, Anna does her best to satisfy Jamie’s demands for some playtime so that she can return to her true passion, squeegeeing.