I feel like today was easily the warmest of the year so far, unseasonably so at almost 70.
And as such, J.B. and Anthony decided it was a great day to usher our bovine family, Betsy and her son, Nutmeg, and Honey and her daughter, Meredith, back to their summer pasture alongside Young’s Hill. Much to the cattle’s delight. And well, with mixed reviews from the chimpanzees.
Meredith, Betsy and Anthony:
The bovines didn’t even have time to delight the humans as we all stood in hopes of seeing a lot of running and kicking and jumping about, they set straight to work chomping all the spring grass suddenly at their disposal.
Betsy, Meredith and Honey (Nutmeg was hanging out just to the left with J.B., but I missed a photo!
Of course, the chimps had to investigate this situation immediately and everyone but Negra marched straight up the hill to check things out. Jamie, naturally, led the way and promptly took a seat on Twister (see our Sponsor a Day today for the wonderful story behind this amazing structure!) to assess the situation. The funny thing about Jamie though is that she made virtually no acknowledgement of the cattle, though if her face was to tell any tale, she appeared rather vexed with their return. She asked for her caregivers to accompany her on several walks to the top of the hill throughout the afternoon, but each time we reached the top she promptly “ignored” the cattle and marched back to the chimp house.
Jody, Burrito and Foxie (and Dora) were close behind:
Foxie and Burrito:
Foxie and Burrito were moderately unimpressed by the return of their summer neighbors and headed back to the greenhouse (Missy and Jamie, background):
At some point, sweet Annie had made her way up the hill, but seemingly once she spotted those “demon” cattle she screamed at the top of her lungs and high-tailed it all the way back to the safety of the greenhouse where I found her surrounded by Burrito and Missy. So it appears cows are now on the list with snakes. It’s really curious as Annie has shown zero concern regarding the cattle in past seasons, not to mention she can see the neighbors’ cattle in the pastures below. I’m guessing she just wasn’t expecting the return of the summer neighbors.
Once Annie was safely ensconced in the greenhouse, we heard a huge ruckus erupt from the chute where we found Mave, Willy B and Honey B expressing their thoughts over the cattle. Honey B in particular seemed very alarmed by their presence (perhaps taking a cue from Annie) and climbed to the top of the chute where she repeatedly vocalized alarm calls and asked Chad and I for reassurance. Poor Honey B eventually calmed down and returned to Phase I just in time for Mave to come screaming inside and flee upstairs into Honey B’s arms where she sounded alarm calls for several minutes. Chad and I discovered it was due to a low flying helicopter.
Willy B and Mave:
So the chimpanzees and the cattle and the humans were enriched with adventures of all manner today. Just as we all hope our days to be (though, perhaps, a little less alarming to some of us). 😉
Thanks Katelyn, What a great post, I loved the pictures of Jamie on the Twister on The Anniversary post earlier today too.
I can’t help but laugh at poor Annie, it always seems like she’s going for an academy award. 🙂
But the new three is different, poor Californians… Cows and then a helicopter too !
The Twister makes THE perfect spy center to check in on those pesky bovines. (Perhaps Bill was smiling down upon the sanctuary enjoying this new aspect of his legacy, or perhaps all that sunshine was his way of visiting with the chimps). I thought with the bovines enjoying all that yummy spring grass Negra was going to be out looking for tender sweet sprouts to snack on. Perhaps it is too soon for her particular taste. I can only image the thoughts that were running though Annies brain, she’s a sensitive emotional girl. Dang that helicopter! With the warm temps and bovines invading the hill I thought for sure one of the Californians just might make today the day they dare to go out beyond the chute. Ugh. …….Scary things happen out beyond and now above the chute. : (
Tomorrow’s a new day!
Hi Kathleen, it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for the Twister advantages to be utilized. 🙂 And you’ll be happy to know that Negra spent a good chunk of time alone on the hill just munching on her favorite spring grass in the sunshine. Always a welcome spring sighting for the humans.
Oh dear. Poor sweet Annie. Hopefully tomorrow will bring sunshine, and strength to face her fears. Good luck to Honey B. It’s a big world. I love them all.
Gees, just as the Californians start to inch outside, cows AND a helicopter! That will set them back at least a few days! You’re going to need full apples at the end of that chute to get them out again!
Hi Linda, despite a pretty natural chimpanzee response to anything they (or other chimps) find alarming, our three Californian family members (come to think of it, the cattle are Californians as well!) are a tenacious bunch and seem to take most things in stride. We had to coax them back inside for dinner. 🙂
Great post! Forgive me if you’ve answered this before, but how do the chimps get reassurance from you? I think it’s super cute when they get it from one another. Could you describe how they get it from people? It’d be awesome if you could post video of that sometime too, if it’s not too much trouble. Thank you!
That’s a great question, Alex! Sometimes it’s easy to overlook explaining some of the day to day, so thanks for asking. While we operate under the assumption that the chimps understand most, if not all, of what we say (having been around humans their entire lives), we’re all trained to communicate with them as much as possible using their language of vocalizations, gestures and body postures. When chimpanzees seek and give reassurance to one another it can be for a variety of reasons and involve a variety of gestures, for example due to a conflict vs. fear of a real or perceived threat vs. happiness and excitement. These can present as embracing, “kissing”, breathy-panting, presenting their back-end, or an outstretched arm. When the chimps ask for reassurance from us, and we respond, it looks similar, but with some big exceptions. Of course, we never share space with the chimps and we follow strict safety protocol when we do interact with them. We are also cautious to assess the context of the situation before we respond and do our best to keep our noses out it so as not to upset their social balance. For example, if a chimp is seeking reassurance from us during a fight, we do not respond outside of maybe a very brief, polite head nod (which can be hard!) because we don’t want to add to a situation that could be seen as taking sides and it’s imperative for their social structure to seek out one another to resolve their issues. Not to mention, we’re of little help on the other side of the enclosure. Chimps are wonderful, amazing mercurial beings and are pretty quick to resolve and move on with their business, especially when the humans can stay out of the way. And no matter the context, the best reassurance for a chimp always comes from another chimp. But an occasional, “Hey friend, it’s okay”, from the humans when they are alarmed, frightened, or super excited is okay.
So what reassurance between the chimps and humans might look like could be a few things: approaching one another while mutually breathy panting, them reaching out to touch the back of our hand (with the safety precautions of their fingers being fully extended through caging and us meeting their fingertips with the backs of our wrists and our fingers tucked in), them presenting a body part against the caging for a knuckle rub, or an outstretched arm with a relaxed wrist toward one another (good from a distance). In this instance with Honey B, she was at the top of their outdoor chute fear grimacing (when chimps show all their teeth, which resembles a full human smile – but keep in mind when chimps’ smile they only show their bottom teeth) and alarm calling (loud, sharp, “waa-waa” vocalizations), so we briefly held outstretched arms toward her and gave her head nods. When Honey B eventually came down, she immediately approached us with breathy panting and extended her fingers to touch our hands. Then she went about her day. 🙂
Great idea to do more videos of this, though I think most of us forget to grab the camera during a ruckus as things happen so quickly and we’re focused on what’s going on with the chimps, especially during a conflict, but here are a few older videos from the blog in which you’ll see some of these behaviors between the chimps (and humans):
https://chimpsnw.org/2015/09/alarm-calling-and-reassurance-seeking/
https://chimpsnw.org/2015/03/reassurance-3/
https://chimpsnw.org/2011/01/new-benches-whats-with-all-the-reassurance/
and for a little reference, so much reassurance seeking in anticipation of a party!:
https://chimpsnw.org/2016/12/christmas-in-the-chimp-house/
oh, I love it when you guys post older videos! And Christmas 2016 was when Bubba got tackled into a corner for some reassurance, when all he wanted was to get another look at the food (hard to see, but i think ot was Foxie)!
Lol, Katelyn, when you were going through the types of reassurance, all of a sudden I was laughing thinking of you guys presenting your backsides to the chimps! 😀
Hi Katelyn,
Thank you so much for the detailed response! The chimps and their idiosyncrasies are incredibly fascinating, and it’s so interesting to hear about this from you. In particular, I had never even considered the effect of human reassurance on chimp social structure. Really appreciate the response. Stay safe and healthy!
You’re most welcome, Alex! Chimp society/politics can be complex. Much like humans. 🙂