Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for February 2023

Breakfast Club

by

Breakfast is one of the most exciting meals here at the sanctuary! Everyone’s just waking up and getting ready for the day, and they know yummy fruits, vegetables, and smoothies are on their way. It’s always a fun meal to serve and today we wanted to bring it to you!

Today’s breakfast menu:

Pomegranates, Cherry Tomatoes, Peanuts, and Chow

Smoothie Recipe:

Bananas, Cantaloupe, Pomegranates, Oat milk, and Supplements

We are able to serve fresh fruits and vegetables to the chimps in our care thanks to twice weekly produce deliveries from Charlie’s Produce. These deliveries allow us to keep the chimps fridges stocked and we are so grateful for them and for everyone who donates as a Produce Patron! Click here to learn more and you can help us keep the chimps bellies full, too. 🙂

Cy, looking like his handsome self:

Jamie, feeling particularly fashionable today:

Terry, being his sweet self:

Non-Verbal Communication with the Chimps

by

Last month, I wrote about how we use verbal communication with the chimps. While I focused on their understanding of the English language, I failed to mention that the chimps who have come from Wildlife Waystation also understand some Spanish! Caregivers at Wildlife Waystation used Spanish frequently around the chimps, so they have some understanding of both languages. CSNW Caregiver, Sofìa, still speaks Spanish to them today, as she mentioned on the blog recently.

Today, I want to discuss a little bit about how we non-verbally communicate with the chimps. I think I could write a blog about this topic for several weeks straight, so I will just be scratching the surface today. If I don’t cover a specific question regarding non-verbal communication, please ask!

Like humans, chimpanzees are experts at reading body language. Have you ever encountered someone and you just know they have had the worst day possible, without them saying a word? The chimps can detect that too. Therefore, it is so important for us caregivers to leave our personal problems or stressors at the door. If we are experiencing conflict in our personal lives, we need to be able to switch that off so the chimps aren’t burdened with our problems. After all, we are in their home and we should try to bring the best energy possible. Even if we are feeling tired and have low energy that day, we attempt to come off neutral or peaceful. As their caregivers, we are apart of their social groups (for the better or the worse) and our attitude is important to their well-being. While they may not exactly be worried if they sense a caregiver is having a bad day (although they may), we need to ensure we are being only a positive or neutral presence in their lives so that we’re not affecting their daily group dynamics. Just like how we want them to all have a happy life, I’d like to think they want us to be happy too.

Just like how the chimps read our body language, that is how we read them as well. Chimpanzee facial expressions can help us gauge how they are feeling. From a play face, to a relaxed face, or a face that shows distress, we can use facial expressions as a clue to how the chimps may be feeling in that moment. Please refer to the “Chimpanzee Facial Expression” chart below for visual pictures. We also are able to tell when a chimpanzee may be worked up, as they will be piloerect- meaning their hair is standing on end. A chimpanzee may be piloerect during an intense situation or when something exciting is occurring.

Burrito piloerect on Young’s Hill

Chimpanzees also use gestures to communicate with each other and caregivers. I found this old video of Foxie asking Jamie for permission to retrieve a nut through head-bobbing (check it out here). And as Grace wrote in an earlier blog, many of our chimps use gestures to ask us for things specific to them (example: Jamie pointing to a specific boot she would like to see us wear). The chimps will point to items they want/need or stare at the item until we catch on. Burrito will use one index finger outside of the caging to indicate he would like to play his favorite game, “Poke a caregivers hand”, paired with a play face or a foot stomp, letting us know that we are about to have a fun, play session. Gordo will give us caregivers one simple look (it’s hard to describe), he will then scratch his torso (letting us know he is about to start to move), and off he goes as that is his way to indicate a game of chase. Cy will stand bipedally at the caging and accompany it with a foot stomp to let us know he is wanting to play chase. Cy also uses a “bronx cheer” (which I talked about in the verbal communication blog) when we aren’t engaging in his game of chase fast enough! Negra uses an “arm-extended” gesture to greet us caregivers in the morning (picture Negra with her arm fully extended while breathy panting from her bed). The list truly goes on and on.

As caregivers, we use species specific behavior while interacting with the chimpanzees. This means that we greet the chimpanzees non-verbally first (through gestures, head nodding, and/or breathy panting), as a chimpanzee would greet another chimpanzee, and then we may use a verbal greeting to follow. When we are playing with the chimps, we will laugh and play like a chimpanzee as appropriate. While we now wear N-95’s around the chimps because of the pandemic, we used to exhibit a chimpanzee play face while engaging in a play session. During meals, we food grunt to let them know that it’s time to eat. We always try to prioritize using appropriate chimpanzee behavior first, then will use verbal communication with them as needed.

Grace serving Cy

Chad playing with Burrito

Anna sitting near Mave

Diana playing with Burrito

JB sitting opposite of Jamie

Katelyn greeting Dora

Jenna playing with Gordo

Sofìa and Gordo

Dr. Erin playing with Burrito

Kelsi receiving Terry’s version of a kiss

Being Neighborly

by

I think this video answers a couple of FAQs – the two separate groups at the sanctuary do have visual access to each other (the video “Back in the Chute” is still one of my top five from 2022), and we plan to have the separate groups in their respective adjacent habitats at the same time eventually! They will be separated by four fences and space in between. What other questions to you have about the outdoor access plans?

Breakfast, Interrupted

by

Sometimes my brain is in no mood to write a blog post so I go through my phone to see if there are any photos I haven’t posted. Thus, I present to you, apropos of nothing, these photos from last summer of Dora and Cy stopping to watch the train go by as they eat oranges.

The Dreamy Mezzanine

by

In the winter, the Mezzanine is the coziest place to hang out with the chimpanzees. The upstairs Mezzanine is the only part of the sanctuary where humans can easily access the second floor for interactions with the chimps and it’s toasty warm up there. If you are missing a caregiver in the afternoon after the cleaning is done, there’s a good chance they are sitting upstairs on the heated floors next to one of their good friends.

Terry grooms Grace with a toothbrush:

This afternoon as I hunted for blog content, I found the majority of Cy’s group lounging in the Mezzanine. Here are 2 particularly dreamy looking people…

Lucky:

Rayne:

In the February Air

by

February birthdays and the first early notes of spring here at the sanctuary are in the air! To all you February revelers, Happy Birthday, from all of us here!

And you lucky friends get the amazingly huge and floofy Nutmeg Steer as your birthday month twin! So I’d say things are off to a good and hopeful start. Nutmeg will be turning 8 years old this Friday, February 10th!

Behold: Eensy, wee, baby Nutmeg, and his mama, Betsy (I mean, it’s too much, right?!) – photo courtesy of Farm Sanctuary:

Behold: Not so eensy or wee baby Nutmeg (r) and his mama, Betsy, now:

But make no mistake, in the eyes of both Nutmeg and Betsy, photo number one is still the clear reality, Nutmeg, the forever baby boy. These two adore one another!

It’s a rare and special gift that Nutmeg and Betsy get to live out their lives together AND that we humans get the rare opportunity to truly see how family-oriented, intelligent and sensitive bovines are. We are so grateful to you all who make it possible for these two, along with their herd-mates, Honey, and her daughter, Meredith, to live out their lives in a manner of their own choosing that they’re most deserving of.

The family is staying warm with the help of their swoon-worthy, winter floof (Betsy, Nutmeg, Honey and the ever-independent, Meredith):

While it’s definitely still winter here in the Cascades, we’ve been seeing some signs of change ahead. And even though we know better than to think winter over, after the early and unrelenting cold and storms we’ve had, it’s a great sigh of relief to see the hopeful reminders of spring in the works. The first red-winged blackbirds have suddenly appeared, their territorial calls swirling out into the cold morning air from atop the cattails, and very surprisingly, a handful of the swallows have been returning to their sanctuary nesting site already.

And as you may have seen mentioned on the blog recently, style maven, Annie, has once again begun donning her annual spring/summer fashion of choosing to wear colorful headbands around her waist!

The chimpanzees have access to these headbands as part of their enrichment year ’round and can choose to do with them (or not) as they please, but Annie typically only starts showing up wearing these as one of our first harbingers of spring and then they just as suddenly go by the wayside by the end of summer. And much to our delight, Annie’s neighbors, Rayne, Honey B, and Lucky have gotten in on the delightful trend.

Honey B:

Curious and endearing, we can’t figure it out. What’s the cue? How do they decide, “It’s waistband season!” or “Of course, I’m going to wear this tiny thing around my waist for days on end.” For whatever reason, known only to the chimpanzees, wearing ’80’s style terry cloth workout headbands appears to bring them joy and add some interest to their days. And that’s all we need to know. That said, during one of our recent staff meetings a fantastic theory was proferred that perhaps when Annie is whistling away with her endearing “Annie-bird” noises, she and the early arriving birds are communicating the coming of spring. I mean the first day this year that Annie wore a headband was the same the first swallows arrived. Just sayin’. 😉

And even Betsy has begun her spring ritual of mud facials. Perhaps Betsy’s mud facials are the bovine spring fashion equivalent to the waistband? (We couldn’t figure this out either, but Diana recently observed her rubbing her face in mud along the spring that trickles through their winter pasture. Another sure sign of spring ahead!).

We brush it off, Betsy cakes it back on. Sorry, Betsy!:

Okay, friends, all of us here are wishing you the happiest of February birthdays and winter-spring days! May you don whatever makes your own heart sing and celebrate all the tiny things you can, that actually, aren’t so tiny at all. We’re so glad you are here with us!