Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for November 2020

A Picture Blog

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Wednesdays are very busy because of our staff meeting and if you combined that with very slow internet, you get a frantic blog writer. I had hoped to make a wonderful video for you all, but the internet gods have said not today. We shall keep our fingers crossed until next week! What I would like to present to you all today is a picture blog, a virtual photo book I suppose. Please enjoy!

I don’t know if winter is fully here yet. However, it is starting to get very cold and snowy.

But, still very beautiful!

Though the chimps enjoy eating the snow. I wouldn’t say they love walking through it that much. But, if we know Jamie no weather will stop her from a walk, but maybe not today… Jamie was busy building nests with her favorite books, boots, and watching J.B. do some maintenance around the chimp house.

Did I mention it was cold this morning? Annie looked out through the raceway, debating if she should go out and grab some snow. Instead she decided her caregiver should just hand it to her.

The dreamboat himself, Willy B. Willy B has been grabbing the biggest coziest blankets he can find lately!

Cold + snow + any day really= Negra in an amazing nest! I almost couldn’t find her!

Missy is a hard chimp to capture a photos of. She is always on the move. I did manage to catch her eating a mid-afternoon snow snack!

I love seeing the cattle with their winter coats!

Sweet and Sassy Honey Turns 13!

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Today, Honey Cow turns 13 years old! Here are a few facts about Honey!

Honey and her bovine family recently celebrated her second year here. Honey is one special bovine. Of the four cattle, she wears the sassiest of pants in the bunch.

If she feels the herd is moving to slow for her liking…

She is not afraid to pass everyone up and take the lead.

When caregivers go to serve the cattle hay, minerals, or any other treat, Honey is the one of the ones to first run up to them, but will also nudge you away for being anywhere near her and her food (it sort of reminds me of when petting a cat).

Though she is not the biggest in her group, her personality is far larger than most.

She arrived here two years ago with her daughter, Meredith.

She also arrived here with her friend, Betsy, whom she was featured with in a reality television show and was saved with from the dairy industry.

You can also sponsor Honey by becoming a Bovine Buddy to her!

Happy Birthday, Honey! We couldn’t imagine not knowing you!

There are rules

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Jamie has rules. These rules are created for the humans and as such we are expected to follow them, without question, no shortcuts. These rules are created by Jamie and are subject to change without notice. We’re just along for the ride. 🙂

The past couple of days the chimpanzees cannot get enough of Young’s Hill! Reminiscent of summers past, Jamie has been taking near constant spins around the hill, accompanied by her human caregivers and delightfully, many of the other chimpanzees. The daytime temperatures have been hovering in the low to mid 30’s and somehow this has completely invigorated them all. Perhaps they know what’s on the horizon, literally, as at this point snow is due to start tonight and stick around off and on for the next week at least. But I digress. Back to the rules.

As many of you may know, Jamie often asks us to fetch the utility Gator to race with her around the hill. She used to like the humans to ride in the Gator while wearing her boots. But with me at least, this rule has changed a bit into wanting to have one human drive the Gator AND one human run with her ahead of the Gator. Though it’s always been the obvious rule that the Gator never wins these races, she’s adjusted the rule more recently to seemingly want to run away from the Gator, well ahead of it reaching her and her human companion. Now here’s a specific scenario where she gets very specific with her rules:

Jamie and Burrito will be racing up the hill with two caregivers. Half way up the hill Jamie will decide one of the humans needs to return to the barn and fetch the Gator. She indicates this by walking back down the hill, looking toward the barn and shaking her fist. Jamie speak for “Go get the Gator!” “Now!” She will rarely be deterred from this. Next rule is the absolute.very.second one human leaves to fetch said Gator, Jamie looks at the other human as if to say, “Ruuuunnn!!!” and you are expected to RUN and get as far ahead of the Gator as possible before it even leaves the barn. (Unfortunately for this human, this is also the uphill part). This reminds me a little bit of those silly old games where you’re trying to see how fast you can unlock your door as you pretend a murderer is after you. You know that game, right? No? Well, anyway…

And what if the humans try to skip the rules? Well, you’re going to have to go back to the beginning and do it right. After several runs up and around the hill, this human tried to take a short cut at one point and hitch a lift on the Gator with Chad, at least for uphill portion. We went a short distance, then Jamie abruptly stopped, turned around and marched us back down the hill to the starting point where she gestured for me to get out of the Gator and then run with her ahead of it! Humans need a lot of supervision. At least this one, I guess.

We never know for sure what’s going on in that brilliant, kaleidoscopic mind of hers, but we couldn’t be more thrilled to get to tag along.

As I revved the Gator (because that’s the most exciting part) and did my best to drive steady, poor Chad was tasked with capturing this wild, blur of a woman from the passenger seat and somehow managed capturing her in all her crazy excited, hair-standing on end, charging across the hill glory:

As Anthony accurately put it today while looking at this photo, Jamie is a hurricane of a chimp woman. Indeed she is. And we love her so. What a privilege to be caught up in her wild winds with her.

The construction guys are working so hard to get the roof on before the snows fly and watched us storming around the hill again and again. I can only imagine what goes through their minds. They asked who ended up winning. Of course, we all know the answer to that. 🙂

Riding the Waves

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The chimpanzees began their morning with a raucous exchange of displays between the two neighboring groups. Screams, barks, drumming and hoots reverberated throughout the Chimp House. The neighbor effect is very real.

The following breakfast services were predictably tense. On one side of the building, Jamie was irate that the poor human caregiver wouldn’t give her someone else’s chow bag. The white paper bag sat awkwardly in the bottom of the food chute as Jamie loudly won the ensuing argument, but Negra quietly absconded with the prize during the chaos. In the Mezzanine, Willy B flexed his dominance by intimidating the female chimps and claiming Mave’s chow bags. Willy has grown more patient and tolerant in his time here, possibly due to our efforts to promote cooperative feeding. However, like all high-ranking chimps, he still needs to assert himself occasionally. This morning was one of those moments.

Generally speaking, chimpanzee behavior is characterized by short chaotic episodes during which the social hierarchy is challenged. These conflicts can either reform existing relationship dynamics or reinforce them. Instability and tension, however, are not just unpleasant; they’re downright exhausting. Adrenaline is unsustainable and requires a long reset afterwards. For this and many other reasons, chimps spend most of their time engaged in relatively peaceful activities such as grooming, foraging, and rest. I don’t know if chimpanzees have a “love language,” but low-key quality time would probably be it.

Given today’s hectic beginning, it was not surprising that the sanctuary’s residents had calmed down by lunch. The Seven were all about doing laps around Young’s Hill, while Honey B and Mave spent a large chunk of the day grooming and playing chase. Once our team was finished scrubbing enclosures for the day, I took a moment to go sit just outside the caging in the Mezzanine and observe the chimps. Willy B was the only chimp up there, lazily turning over some blankets and toys that had just been distributed by caregivers.

Willy B stared at me for a second, made a gentle hoo, and retrieved a fluffy blue blanket that had been draped over the nearby bench. He dragged it towards me with his knuckles, stopping only when the edges of the blanket were pushed up against the bottom of the steel mesh that separated us. Willy then leaned forward and, like a collapsing Imperial AT-AT, took a gargantuan nose dive into the shaggy pile.

He laid there for some time, face buried in the folds of the blanket. It was difficult to tell if it was a moment of pure exhaustion or zen-like bliss. I followed suit, sprawling out on the smooth heated floor. He lifted his head to reveal his brown eyes, which briefly showed a flash of skepticism, before apparently deciding that it was okay for me to join him on the floor. As I laid on my back, looking up at the passing clouds through the Mezzanine’s skylights, Willy began to take longer and longer blinks until he slowly fell asleep.

Even though I’m used to the routine by now, I noted how odd it felt to see Willy B gradually drift off into a light nap. He seemed to be at ease amid his surroundings despite being a hurricane of hair and muscle just hours earlier. I also felt slightly honored that he had chosen to be in my proximity without asking for anything else. I reminded myself that the never-ending waves of chimpanzee emotion, with peaks of chaos and troughs of serenity, are not something to be necessarily battled against. Rather, they are all part of the chimpanzee experience, adding value to each other. As Anna once told me when I was learning to manage the complex dynamics among these unique chimp individuals, “you’ve gotta ride the waves.”

I decided not to take any photos of Willy B’s nap; doing so would have likely caused him to sit up and stare into the camera lens. Instead, here are some photos our team has taken of chimpanzees resting during the peaceful eyes that separate many tumultuous storms.

   

   

Have a great night, everyone!

Ellie / Buttons the Elk: Story and Update

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This post fulfills two things:
1) My long-held desire to present the tale of Buttons/Ellie the Elk as a children’s story
2) Answering your inquires from this post about what happened to our elk friend (scroll to the bottom of the story for that update)

Buttons The Magical Elk

Once upon a time, there was an elk who stood apart from her species.

She grew up an orphan, adopting humans as her herd. They named her Buttons.

She was a very curious elk and not easily frightened.

When she was about two years old, she wandered away from the farm where she grew up.

She discovered very interesting animals living at a property nearby.

Who would have guessed there was a chimpanzee sanctuary in the neighborhood?!

The chimpanzees at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest were curious about this new visitor and sometimes walked together around their outdoor habitat on opposite sides of the fence.

Jamie and Ellie bottom of Young's Hill

The humans at the sanctuary loved her. They called her Ellie, not knowing she had been named Buttons.

What a treat to have such an unusual companion!

She did cause quite a bit of mischief, however…

She wandered further and further away from her childhood home, finding more human friends in a nearby village, having many adventures, and causing more mischief.

She was an elk, after all. A large, powerful, wild animal.

Not a dog.

Nor a cat.

Nor a cow.

Her human friends worried about her future.

Shouldn’t she be with others of her kind?

One day, a small herd of wild elk passed through the sanctuary property. Her sanctuary human friends hoped Ellie would join them and discover the life of an elk. But, alas, Ellie ignored the other elk and stayed put.

Word of the magical elk traveled throughout the land, gaining the attention of officials who became concerned.

She was far too comfortable around humans, even those she did not know.

Something could go wrong. She could easily hurt someone. Someone could hurt her.

An officer in charge of wildlife decided it was finally time to find a new home for Buttons. But where?

Officer Scott knew there were elk nearby who stayed in one spot for the winter, so his team put Buttons on a trailer and moved her to this herd.

Some of her human friends in the village were very worried and even mad.

Why would they take Buttons away from her home and the people who loved her?

Her human friends at the sanctuary hoped for the best – the chance for Ellie to be an elk.

She didn’t know how to be an elk in such a big group, though. She stayed away from them and searched for a way out.

Officer Scott looked high and low for other options for Buttons. A place for her to be herself and be safe.

The sanctuary humans offered to keep her at the sanctuary, but knew that would mean she would be an elk of one and not able to wander far.

Officer Scott heard from the zoo over the tall mountains – they had a small group of elk and could take Buttons!

Buttons/Ellie had another chance to be an elk! There was even a male in the group, Goodwyn. How would Buttons react to a male of her species in a small group?

A year and a half later, the sanctuary humans asked the zoo humans how Buttons/Ellie was doing, and this is what they said:

The Roosevelt elk (cows Willow and Lily) hang out together and the Rocky Mountain elk (bull Goodwyn and Buttons) are seen mostly together. Buttons, now being the oldest of the cows, is the dominant female and enjoys pushing those young cows around. During this rut season, Goodwyn seems to direct his attention to Buttons (he’s had a vasectomy, so there will be no baby elk).

Buttons continues to be a blessing to keeper staff in her willingness to shift and engage with us. She loves her afternoon carrots and leaf eater biscuit “cookies.”

Even though Buttons was raised with people and interacted mostly with people, she certainly knows elk language and behavior, and is confident in our little herd.

Buttons had found her home. A place where she could be her mischievous self but also live with others like her.

The zoo humans even shared some beautiful photos of her at her Woodland Park Zoo home:

photo credit: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo
photo credit: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo
photo credit: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo
photo credit: John Loughlin/Woodland Park Zoo
photo credit: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo

 

Not long ago, as the sun was rapidly sinking, the sanctuary humans heard strange animal calls near the property. Sounds they had never heard before.

It was the loud cries of bull elk calling back and forth across the valley! The sanctuary humans rushed quietly up the hill, squinting to try to see in the dark.

When they got to the spot where Ellie used to walk on the other side of the fence with the chimpanzees, they heard heavy breathing and pounding hoofs and saw the shadowy figures of dozens of elk running through the woods.

They wondered if these elk were Ellie’s original family.

They wondered what her life would have been like if she had been able to stay in the wild.

But they know, like the chimpanzees they care for, that sometimes wild animals can’t go back to the wild.

Sometimes the happy ending isn’t perfect, but it’s still happy.

Chimp feet are pretty handy

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Recently, Edie asked: I am amazed when I see pictures of their feet-they seem so versatile! Do they ever use their feet like hands?

Chimpanzee feet are pretty amazing indeed. Unlike our own, they are prehensile, meaning they have the ability to grasp. This is because their big toes are opposable, like our thumbs.

Annie, holding her hand with her foot

This is presumably an adaptation to aid in climbing, like when scaling tree trunks:

Or when clinging to vines and small branches:

They can also aid in maintaining balance when perched precariously above the ground:

But they can also function like an extra set of hands when necessary. Gathering tomatoes? With prehensile feet you can haul twice as many.

Difficult Kong puzzle? Why not let your feet do some of the work and free up both hands?

Wondering where to put your doll when you are eating lunch suspended from the caging? You can trust that Dora the Explorer will remain safely in the grip of your opposable toe.

The dexterity of chimpanzee feet also makes them great for tickling.

I hope all chimpanzees stop once and a while to appreciate having such useful feet.