Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for July 2022

The Unsuspecting Friendship

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Today, my phone sent me a notification of a memory from last year. One year ago, the quarantine period for the Lucky Six ended and got to be closer to their neighbors (at the time): Willy B, Honey B, and Mave. It doesn’t feel like it has been a year, but at the same time it feels like it’s been over a year. A lot has happened since, like the Lucky Six’s “neighbors” aren’t their neighbors anymore. They are one big group. Since they have been living together for almost three months, it’s hard at times to think they were ever two separate groups.

One of the budding relationships we didn’t anticipate in this new group was that of Mave and Dora. During the introduction process, Mave and Dora didn’t necessarily have bad interactions. Their interactions just were never the best. Lackluster is a word that could describe it. They were mostly low key and in short spurts. After the full integration, their friendship really started to come to fruition. At first, it seemed like Mave would just follow Dora constantly with Dora trying to get away. As the weeks went by, and Mave showed Dora what support she could offer as a friend, Dora stopped trying to escape Mave. Or at least as much. There are still times when Dora does want her alone time, but Mave now seems to get the hint when that is. Mave will leave her alone for a little while (but not too long), interact with the others, before returning to Dora.

It is now not an uncommon sight to find these two together in the afternoon, side-by-side.

One day, I even found them like this. Laying down, holding hands, and just staring at each other.

Later on, something startled Dora. I couldn’t see what caused Dora to become upset, but she started alarm calling, followed by screaming, before racing off into the Riverview Greenhouse. Mave was in the other room, but she heard Dora and followed the screams to the greenhouse. As Mave emerged from the Marmot Playroom, Dora leaped towards Mave and they embraced in the most endearing hug I have seen.

That hug seemed to calm Dora down.

I, for one, personally cannot wait to see how this friendship blossoms even further!

Here are some bonus photos from today!

Gordo eating some fingerling potatoes at lunch:

Jamie enjoying a raspberry branch as browse:

Terry in the Riverview Greenhouse with a mouthful of water and wadge in hand:

Jody watching some construction around Young’s Hill:

And resting in the afternoon:

Annie foraging for some pre-breakfast prickly lettuce:

Burrito racing toward me as I was taking the above photo, telling me it’s time to race:

Rayne relaxing inside where it’s cooler:

Dora in her patent Happy Dora Pose:

Cy grooming Mave grooming Willy B:

Cy catching up on all the latest celebrity news a couple of days ago:

We also want to thank our friends at Tru Earth! About a year ago, as an ongoing effort to reduce our environmental footprint, we switched the detergent we use to wash the chimpanzee’s blankets. Tru Earth were kind enough to start a fundraiser store just for us. Twenty percent of every purchase made from this unique URL will go toward the chimpanzees! If you are in need of cleaning supplies or other eco-friendly products, please consider shopping at this site!

I spy…

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Today, caregiver Anthony took off additional panels to the Greenhouse for Jamie’s group. In addition to more air-flow through the Greenhouse (which is why Anthony did this), this allows Jamie’s group a new angle to sneak a peak at Cy’s group (which is always very exciting).

As you can see, chimpanzees don’t spy very discretely.

Burrito:

Can you spot Foxie?

The seven typically like to spy on their neighbors through the Playroom 1 windows. The Playroom 1 windows give them a decent view of the Oakwood Greenhouse as well as one of the Playrooms for Cy’s group. Can you spot Burrito? He likes to set up a barrel for himself so he has seating.

I think his arm propped up on the window sill is a nice touch.

Don’t worry, Cy’s group was pretty unbothered by their nosy neighbors.

Rayne relaxing in the cool front rooms:

In our recent call out for questions or ideas for the blog, some wondered if the chimps still pay attention to the “howdy door”.

All the time!

For those unfamiliar with the “howdy door”, you can watch a video about the door here. It is a door that separates the two sides of our building and our two chimpanzee groups. Any time there is drama on one side of the building, it is nearly a guarantee that at least one chimp will try to see if they can get a peak of the action through small cracks in the “howdy door”. It is also not uncommon for the chimps to target the “howdy door” during their displays.

Willy B and “Howdy Door”:

 

Hydration Stations

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Local temperatures are expected to reach (or exceed) 99°F for the rest of this week. For comparison, NOAA reports that our average high for the month of July is only 80°F.

“Big yikes.”

When the weather gets this hot, our staff deftly adjusts the daily routine to keep the residents cool, comfortable and entertained throughout the day.

One popular activity is drinking from improvised hydration stations (i.e., containers of cold water). Sometimes, we add pieces of fruit or chunks of ice for the chimpanzees to fish out and snack on. Occasionally, we also mix in a little bit of Gatorade® powder to create a diluted sports drink.* The chimps always have access to fresh running water via the Lixit® drinking fountains in each enclosure, but they seem to prefer drinking from the oversized tubs of cool hose water on days like today.

*The best Gatorade flavor is “blue” because it tastes exactly like the color blue.

Cy

I took some photos of the chimps in Cy’s group as they utilized the splashy enrichment this afternoon. It can sometimes be difficult to identify them as they lower their faces into the containers, obscuring their distinguishable features.

Gordo

Mave

Willy B

On the other side of the building, the individuals in Jamie’s group had already filled up with hose water and floating berries and were lounging in the cool front rooms. I managed to capture a photo of Foxie in the “studio,” staring back at the camera with doll in hand.

Foxie

These Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Weeks of Summer

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A big ole’ heat wave is coming to Cle Elum this week and although today wasn’t the hottest of the hot upcoming days, it is still a *very* warm 92 degrees Fahrenheit. On days like this, afternoons tend to be a little quieter as the chimps find cool spots to relax throughout the chimp house. A wonderful thing about the Pacific Northwest, though, is that nights and mornings tend to be a good deal cooler than the afternoons. This means that, in the morning, Jamie’s group still gets to enjoy Young’s Hill and Cy’s group is frequently inviting caregivers to play chase throughout the greenhouses!

In the afternoons, we work to provide the chimps enrichment to keep them cool – and today we made snow-cone-boats for everyone! Check out the photos below to see how they enjoyed it.

This morning, Annie and Missy enjoyed a bit of morning climbing on Carlene’s Tower.

Annie inspecting some tall grass out on Young’s Hill in the morning glow of sunshine.

While everyone went out to explore the hill, Negra opted to hang back and watch (ahem, nap).

Negra and Foxie enjoying a post-breakfast relaxation session in the greenhouse.

Foxie was all about a slow motion game of pass-the-troll-through-the-caging, before she took them back for a cuddle.

Cut to the afternoon – cleaning is complete, lunch has been had, and it’s time for some cooling enrichment! We took shaved ice and added in a drizzle of Grape Juice and a few freshly harvested raspberries and currants, courtesy of our abundant garden outside of the kitchen.

Everyone was super excited! It’s tough to snag photos of the chimps with the snow cone boats, since they eat them so quickly, but I took a few mediocre ones with my phone to share. 🙂

Annie:

Cy:

Dora:

Foxie:

Jamie:

Terry:

I also wanted to make a quick shout out- we can’t express how amazing our volunteers and supporters are, no words could ever do it justice. And today I wanted to send a thank you to volunteer Patti for her surprise delivery of vegan ice cream sandwiches for the staff and a box fan for the chimps! Thank you!!

A Life Taken Away, then Restored

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Negra is one of only two or three chimpanzees at the sanctuary captured in the wild and brought to the United States for biomedical research.

Thankfully, the practice of capturing chimpanzees for use in biomedical testing in the U.S. ended in 1976 when they were listed as threatened per the 1973 Endangered Species Act of the United States.

As explained on the website Animal Welfare Law

Cited problems included human destruction of natural habitat, capture and export for research laboratories and zoos, the spread of disease from people to chimpanzees, and ineffectiveness of existing regulatory mechanisms. Simultaneously, the Service issued a special regulation providing that the prohibitions that generally cover all threatened species would not apply to live P. troglodytes and P. paniscus held in captivity in the United States on the effective date of the rule, or to the progeny of such animals, or to the progeny of chimpanzees legally imported into the United States after the effective date of the rule. This exemption was intended to facilitate legitimate activities of U.S. research institutions, zoos, and entertainment operations, without affecting wild chimpanzee populations.

This exemption allowed for Negra, who was captured in 1973, to grow up, from infancy to adulthood, without her own family, within a laboratory as a research animal.

The records we have for her are limited, but we do know that she, along with the rest of her group at the sanctuary, was used in hepatitis vaccine testing. Like Annie, Missy, Jody, and Foxie, she was also used to breed more chimpanzees for research. Negra had a total of four babies, according the records we have, and she did not have the opportunity to be with them because they were taken to be used in experiments themselves.

How did Negra’s past impact the Negra we know today? It’s impossible to  know.

What we do know is that today, 14 years and 39 days after her sanctuary life began, Negra sat in the tall green grass of Young’s Hill and ate her corn at peace.

You asked…let’s answer! (Pt. II)

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More of your questions answered! (see Part I here and an additional answer here)

How do you administer their medications?

The chimps take a number of different medications for both acute and chronic conditions. Most medications are mixed with smoothie, juice, or Gatorade and served to the chimps in a cup through the mesh. This is the easiest way to make sure each chimp gets the correct medication and to ensure that they took the entire dose. Each morning, the person serving as 2nd Staff is responsible for preparing medications in labeled cups, which they then set on trays to be served along with their meals.

Some of these medications are nearly tasteless while others have a bitter or metallic flavor that cannot be covered up by any amount of juice, in which case we will try things like yogurt or honey. For some drugs, we’ve learned the only way to get the chimps to take them is to have them microencapsulated at a specialized compounding pharmacy. This is a process in which the medication is prepared in tiny particles which are then covered in a tasteless coating – imagine a bunch of Advil tablets but 1/500th the size. The microencapsulated drug can then be mixed into a yogurt or other food without throwing off the taste. It’s expensive but worth every penny when a sick chimp is reluctant to take their meds.

The chimps all differ in how easily they will take medications. For Negra, we go straight for the pineapple coconut juice – she generally won’t take meds in anything else. Gordo is similarly stubborn. He will even spit all of the liquid out onto the floor or a piece of cardboard, sift out any undissolved medication, and slurp it back up. And if he senses too much undissolved medication, he will spit it right back in your face.

Most of the chimps allow us to hold the cup and pour the juice or smoothie into their mouths, but some insist on holding the cup themselves. Burrito is one who must hold his own cup and when he’s done, he delights in letting it drop and even throwing it down to the ground. Others, like Honey B, politely wait for us to come back and take it from them so as not to cause a fuss. One time I got sidetracked after giving Cy his cup and when I returned a couple minutes later, he was still holding it up and waiting for me to collect it.

Some medications are given topically, as in the case of antiseptics for wounds or even lotions or salves for dry, cracked skin. For these, we encourage the chimps to cooperate through positive reinforcement training.

The most difficult time to give medications is in the days following a procedure, when the chimps are still recovering from anesthesia. Unfortunately, this is often the most critical time to give drugs like analgesics and antibiotics. We make sure to give long-acting injectable drugs while they are still in the clinic, but eventually we have to beg and plead for them to take them orally. We will try anything. Some of you may remember Burrito’s late night medication-stuffed bagels. There is no better sense of accomplishment than when a sick chimpanzee finally takes the medication they need to recover.

Are the chimps on any type of birth control?

Yes, all of the females that regularly cycle, with the exception of Annie, are given hormonal birth control each morning. One reason to give birth control is, as you might have guessed, to prevent pregnancy – we are doing this for the females in the newly integrated group until we can see who copulates and/or confirm that the males are still sterile from the vasectomies they were given years ago. So far it’s still just Terry and Dora copulating on occasion, but you can’t be too careful. But there are other medical reasons to administer birth control hormones. Jamie, for example, was put on birth control to suppress the normal anogenital swelling associated with her cycle, which we worried might increase the pain and discomfort of her anal fistulas. Jody was placed on birth control due to a uterine fibroid and abnormal menstrual bleeding.

Of course, birth control isn’t the only medication we administer on a daily basis. Some chimps, like Burrito and Cy, take medications to manage their heart disease. Others, like Foxie and Negra, take medications to manage pain associated with arthritis. Just like us, the list of medications grows longer as they grow older. This morning, Anna prepared 29 different medications and supplements for our 16 chimpanzees – and that was just the a.m. dose!

The no swim zone

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A common question people ask is if we put pools out for the chimpanzees (particularly in the summer) to sit or swim in. Yes we put out troughs, buckets and small pools of water out for them. However, swimming (or even standing) in shallow water is not something they like to do.

Most chimpanzees avoid water submersion of any type at all cost. Chimpanzees have dense muscular bodies that make them terrible swimmers and really adept sinkers. Perhaps you may have seen water moats carefully designed at zoos and sanctuaries to keep chimpanzees from escaping their enclosures. These moats usually include an additional barrier to prevent the chimpanzees from accidentally falling in the water. There are a few exceptions to this rule of course, but none of those exceptions live at CSNW.

That being said, the chimpanzees at this sanctuary love to enjoy water in other formats.

They love to eat water in its solid form. Here’s Cy:

Jamie in particular likes a good misting:

Here’s Rayne getting hydrated during Gordo’s birthday party earlier this week:

The chimpanzees have access to water spigots in their enclosure 24/7. Here Honey B drinks straight from the tap:

Jamie fills her watering can at the spigot so she can have her beverage “to go”:

Foxie uses a straw to enjoy a drink bucket that’s placed outside her enclosure:

Above you will also find a video of Missy and Burrito “fishing” for sunflower seeds as an afternoon enrichment project. Notice how Missy perches on the edge of the trough and strategically positions herself so she doesn’t get her feet wet.

We are on the edge of a big heat wave coming our way next week so we will certainly be working at keeping the chimps extra hydrated and comfortable in the coming days. Stay cool friends!