Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Archives for April 2024

Cooperative Feeding with Jamie’s Group

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Something we’ve been working on lately is using positive reinforcement training to try and help alleviate tension in the Jamie’s group during meals. Jamie, on occasion, tries to prevent a couple of the low ranking girls in her group from getting high value food items, like fruit. Because of this, we have been working on cooperative feeding with the group by stationing Jamie during meals. Stationing means we put an item in front of Jamie, in this case a frisbee hung on the mesh, and ask her to stay at this station during meals while others in the group receive their food. This allows caregivers to move around to serve others, especially low-ranking ladies Annie and Foxie, while Jamie remains at her station and allows them to receive their servings of food. Jamie receives her food throughout the meal, as well as sugar free juice that is just for her as a reward for a job well done.

Today’s video follows the process!

Jamie at her station:

Receiving juice for stationing so well!

Training with Rayne

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Someone recently asked for an update on Rayne’s forehead, and here it is! As many of you who follow the blog already know, Rayne has a chronically dry forehead. It is a distinguishing feature that makes her easy to identify within her group, but can also be itchy and we assume somewhat uncomfortable for her. Because of this, Jenna wrote a plan (awhile ago) to apply lotion to Rayne’s forehead in an attempt to moisturize it and help with the dryness.

Rayne with a magazine and box of enrichment items

The update is that Rayne is a genius and has been allowing us to regularly lotion her forehead, using a paintbrush! She is especially helpful during these sessions as once we paint some of the lotion onto her head, she quickly rubs it in. Rayne’s favorite part of these sessions seems to be the juice she gets as a reward, and she especially loves getting to finish off what is left of it by the end of our session as a jackpot for a job well done. Immediately following these sessions, her forehead appears shiny and well-moisturized, making her look almost like a completely different chimp. We will be continuing to apply lotion to her forehead regularly using a paintbrush, and may try using different lotions to see if they provide more lasting effects.

Rayne’s forehead after lotion application

Enjoy some bonus photos from a forage with Jamie’s group today. The weather has been beautiful today, and both humans and chimps are enjoying it.

Foxie and her doll

Jamie with as many mini peppers as she could carry. This looks very similar to a different photo of Jamie we posted recently…Jamie loves her mini peppers!

Missy in motion

Peanut Butter Magazines

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One of the most popular types of enrichment for the chimps also happens to be one of the easiest food “puzzles” to make. All it takes is a magazine and a tablespoon of peanut butter spread randomly over its pages to keep the chimps busy for a significant amount of time. The chimpanzees enjoy discovering their treats as they carefully examine each page, front and back!  They usually also end up swapping magazines to make sure their friends didn’t miss any secret peanut butter. This afternoon I snapped some photos as Cy’s group investigated their enrichment.

Dora in the chute:

Gordo:

Rayne:

Cy in particular enjoys the gift of peanut butter magazines because it really expands his collection of browsing material:

Bonus! Negra in snuggle mode this morning:

 

Family Ties

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Happy National Siblings Day, everyone! As the youngest sister to two older brothers, I confess that I didn’t know it was national siblings day until Chad told me today during our morning huddle. I feel like that tracks for my experience as the youngest sibling, though, and my brothers wouldn’t expect anything different. Now that I know, happy siblings day to my own brothers and to all who have siblings they wish to celebrate today!

One of my passions about sanctuary work is connecting the dots of the chimps’ family trees. While there’s information we don’t know, and details that we are learning as the years go by, what we do know is pretty special! We have quite a few siblings (both full and half) here at CSNW, so let’s take some time to celebrate them.

First up: Lucky and Cy are full siblings! They share the same parents (Herbie and Sally). They also look quite similar, especially when Lucky is worked up and her hair is pilo-erect (or standing on end). While Cy is more outgoing, when he’s not busy with his magazines, Lucky likes to hang back a bit. When I was in the interactions portion of my training, Cy immediately wanted to play chase while Lucky was more reserved and enjoyed hazing me a bit (her ability to jump on the caging in front of you when you don’t see her coming is uncanny). Over time we’ve built a special friendship with lots of grooming and some of the sweetest morning greetings. They both have a way of looking at you that makes you just stop and stare into their eyes for a while, while all your worries fall away.

Lucky (back) with full-brother, Cy (front)

While Lucky and Cy are full-siblings, they are also half-siblings to Rayne and Honey B since they share the same father, Herbie! What a group! Rayne is reliable and socially savvy, but with a spunky streak. Which makes sense, since she’s related to Honey B. As we creep up on the two-year anniversary of the integration of the six and the three, it’s really wonderful to see how Honey B’s relationships have grown- especially with Rayne!

Cy (left) with full sibling Lucky (middle) and half-sibling Rayne (right)

Honey B (Left) with half-sibling Rayne (right)

That’s not all! Gordo and Dora are also half-siblings, as they share the same father Les. Gordo can be aloof with the humans, but when he warms up to you he’ll engage you in a game of chase with his signature ‘bunny hop’! He also loves smoothies. Like, LOVES. Dora, while she can take or leave her breakfast smoothie, is known for her little head bobble. She has made a best friend in Mave, but her and Gordo enjoy fun games of chase.

Gordo (left) with half-sibling Dora (right)

Oh! And, speaking of learning family connections as we go, we can’t forget that we learned last year that Terry and Mave are also half siblings! They share a father, Conrad. We had wondered for a while, because they share a heightened level of floof and similar face speckling. I often think that they really do act like siblings- Mave will come up to Terry with one of her exaggerated, bouncing, loud greetings to which Terry often greets her quickly before turning away and moving on.

Mave (left) with half-sibling Terry (right)

While there aren’t any siblings in the Cle Elum 7, Burrito shares a father (Mack) with Clay, Jody‘s son, and with Noah, Negra‘s son. Both Clay and Noah live a life of sanctuary at Save the Chimps in Florida.

Handsome Burrito

Burrito arms crossed

And, of course, Missy is Honey B’s mom. Not a sibling-thing, but a family-thing.

Missy

Honey B

To add to the excitement, today has been a beautiful day and both groups got to enjoy a lunch forage in their outdoor habitats! Let’s start with photos of Cy’s group.

Who’s hand is that????

It’s MAVE!! While she’s been getting more comfortable on the Bray, today she participated in her first forage on the Bray. 🙂 Happy day!

She was anxious at first (she came out with a bit of a fear grimace and pilo-erect hair)…

But she got some reassurance from Lucky and began enjoying the forage.

Now, to Jamie’s group!

Sweet Annie-bird

Annie got a good stash of mini peppers…

But Jamie took the gold.

 

 

Ill Communication

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Chimpanzees are amazing communicators. Other than their vocalizations we all know and love, chimpanzees also use a wide array of gestures to communicate. Jamie is one of the best at this. As you might be aware, Jamie is a being with some very particular tastes. When she wants something, she usually won’t let up until she gets it. Sometimes this takes several tries. Sometimes it takes more than one person to decipher Jamie’s code. In this case it was both! As you can see in the video, Jamie would point at J.B., then point at me. It took us a little while, but we ended up figuring it out! She wanted the thing J.B. was carrying and the thing I was carrying, and for us to put them together. It now seems kind of obvious in hindsight, but in the moment, it was really, really confusing.

Here are some bonus photos from today’s lunch forage!

Willy B

Gordo

with Willy B

Rayne during breakfast