Archives for October 2021

Chilly Days

October 10, 2021 by Sam Jones

October is flying by! I still feel like just the other day it was 100 plus degrees outside and now it’s cold in the mornings! Today it didn’t seem to warm up in the afternoon and most everyone (humans included) spent as much time as they could inside. Lots of naps were taken, Burrito played, and Cy read some magazines. It feels like winter is right around the corner! At least with the way October is moving Jamieween will be here before we know it! I’ve heard a lots about this fun day and I’m ready for it.

As a reminder don’t forget this week coming up, Tuesday October 12th, is Giving Day for Apes! The donation window has already opened up, but on the 12th lots of things will be happening throughout the day. There’s lots of prizes that the participating sanctuaries and rescue centers can win so make sure to stay tuned! If you want to read more about Giving Day for Apes you can here.

We also have our own fundraising page here.

Enjoy some photos from the day.

Jody resting after breakfast in the front rooms.

The cold didn’t hold back Burrito today! I always say I wish I had the kind of energy that he does. Even first thing in the morning he’s ready to go!

Burrito in a tub!

Jamie keeping an eye on the neighbors.

Lucky making good use of the oversized comfy wolf blanket.

Cy resting while we clean.

Rayne joined the bench party. Left to right: Cy, Lucky, and Rayne.

Cy’s morning rest didn’t last long. He had some celebrity gossip to catch up on.

engineering challenges that create fun perspectives

October 9, 2021 by Diana

Designing chimpanzee buildings is not an easy task. There are so many functional needs to take into consideration, not to mention having to make everything virtually indestructible as well as fun for smart and strong chimpanzees.

For our most recent construction, in order to connect the two new greenhouses to one another so that chimpanzees could pass from one to the other, a door needed to be installed between them, but we also wanted a human hallway in between the greenhouses with a shelter overhead.

After much rumination, J.B. and Marc Brown of Marc Brown Design came up with a door above the hallway. Our doors on the new side of the building are on a hydraulic system and remotely operated, so the next challenge was figuring out how the human door-operators could see the door while operating it.

The solution was to create a small space of caging embedded within the ledge of the greenhouses on each side that allows the humans a clear view of both sides of the door (Door Q, in case you’re curious), while operating the door using the lever on the left in the photo below.

Aside from the outdoor Chute, It’s currently the only place where the chimpanzees are directly above human space.

Rayne thinks this perspective is very fun, and she surprised me the other day by greeting me from above.

You may notice that Rayne has a strange looking pinky toe on her left foot – this is from a recent injury during introductions. If you know chimps at all, you won’t be surprised to learn that Rayne is not bothered in the least by this injury. She allows us to spray it with Vetericyn, and I’ve seen her friends occasionally paying close attention to it, but otherwise I forget she was even injured. Even directly after the fight when this injury happened, she was ready to be reunited with the sparring chimpanzees, so we put them all back together for the big playroom romp that J.B. wrote about.

The toughness and silliness of chimpanzees will never cease to impress me.

Morning with the Seven

October 8, 2021 by J.B.

It was a nice, quiet morning for the Seven.

When Honey B met Luna

October 7, 2021 by Anna

Those that regularly follow the blog might remember that my daughter Luna was born just before the pandemic took hold of this country (January 2020). I wrote about her first visit to the sanctuary in this blog last year. At the time,Honey B was particularly interested in her and wanted to get a closer look.

Luna, now a curious toddler, got a (special daughter of staff) opportunity to visit the chimps again last month. This time, for the chimps’ safety and hers, we visited through the windows in our new enclosed mechanical room. This room gives us a convenient little peek into two areas inhabited by Honey B’s group and Cy’s group.

Somehow Honey B seemed to already know about her little visitor and was waiting at the window to greet her.

For those that know Honey B well (and have been repeatedly dowsed with mouthfuls of smoothie spit directly in their face), it’s a little bit odd that she seems to show a gentler side to smaller humans. We’ve joked that perhaps she’s planning a long con so she can entrap Luna in an eternal squeeze. We’ll never really know, but for now, I choose to believe she just really likes children.

Honey B returns the kiss with Smoosh Face™

Feels like Sanctuary

October 6, 2021 by Kelsi

Today really felt like sanctuary, I mean everyday does, of course! But everyday is different, each chimps mood varies, what they feel like doing, or not doing. Today was full of patrol walks, laughter, exploring, displaying, excited breathy pants, and of course a few non shifters ;). The beauty of sanctuary is choice and with that choice gives them a sort of freedom, not the freedom they should have and very much deserve, but the closest freedom they can have. Some days I will catch moments that just make your heart want to burst with joy, like Jamie chasing Foxie on Young’s Hill. Because those moments are what sanctuary is all about!

We just updated our wish list for Wildlife Toybox. They have some really fun durable enrichment, we especially need the mirror cover for our “Looky Lou”!

Rayne says goodnight!

Blankets and Nests Type of Day

October 5, 2021 by Sofia Castro-Loza

As part of today’s daytime enrichment we pre-made nests for the three groups of chimpanzees. They are clearly capable of making their own nests with the special modifications to meet each of their personal needs, therefore our pre-made nests might not be up to their standards. We won’t get offended if some rearranging and redecorating occurs, if anything it makes for good enrichment. For example, Jamie likes to incorporate boots and books to hers so tomorrow morning we might see some boot or book additions in them. In the wild their night nests are complex and are made by arranging tree branches and lining them with leaves, while their daytime nests are usually closer to the ground and less time consuming. Just in case, we made some in all areas of the enclosures to allow the chimps to pick and choose where they want to rest, after alterations are made. We mostly used blankets and different fabrics to design them today but other days we provide the chimps different materials to make their evening or daytime resting nests like paper, plant material, clothing, silk scarves, etc.

Last week was busy with introductions so as caregivers were making nests in the different enclosures, some had the same thought I had: let’s just lay down here for a bit.

Caregivers Kelsi and Sam testing out some nests in the front rooms.

What do you guys think about this pre-made nest?

This morning I saw Negra nesting while enjoying squash browse that Dr. Erin brought yesterday.

Jamie on one of the pre-made nests caregivers prepared today in the green house.

Annie nesting in the greenhouse. Note how she is holding her hand and foot.

Missy and Jody on the greenhouse platform, Jody arranging blankets for her nest.

Enjoy some extras:

Burrito sitting peacefully on the platform of the greenhouse. Don’t be fooled, this guy does not let us skip our daily cardio.

Foxie in the greenhouse looking straight at the camera.

Honey B chilling in the playroom.

Missy looking towards the hill on this chilly and cloudy day.

Dora about to eat the raisin she successfully retrieved from the raisin board using a chopstick.

Rayne carrying around a chopstick after going through most of the raisin board enrichment.

PS. Check out our Amazon wish-list for a list of books for this years Jamieween celebration!

Micro/Macro

October 4, 2021 by Anthony

Photographing chimpanzees is challenging.

To help us create images worthy of sharing with our followers, the sanctuary has a small collection of donated cameras and lenses (some of which were items on our Amazon Wish List). Unlike those versatile zoom and prime lenses, macro lenses are specialized for close-up photography and are currently absent from our regular kit. In order to play around with one at work and in the field, I personally rented a compatible one from an online retailer and brought it to the sanctuary for a couple days.

Macro lenses are functionally unique because they can zoom in on things close to the lens, yielding a final image that is literally larger than life. This practice is generally known as “macro-photography” and gives the associated lenses their descriptive name. (Perplexingly, “micro” and “macro” lenses are the same thing; Nikon uses the former prefix for their lenses while Canon and Sony employ the latter).

A close-up of Lucky’s face, focused on her left eye. The scale is larger than 1:1, making this a true “macro” image.

If this is a topic that piques your interest, I highly recommend going to Instagram’s feed for the popular hashtag: #macrophotography. Some of the most common subjects include insects, eyes, flowers, mushrooms, water droplets, and food items.

Conveniently, most macro lenses also take sharp portraits of larger subjects (even though many of these are technically not “macro” images).

I have included some of the portraits I opportunistically captured of the chimps with the borrowed macro lens. I hope you all enjoy them!