Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today we celebrate an annual day of sanctuary sponsorship for Jessie Crosier from Grant Crosier! Thank you both so much for sharing your special day and adding to the chimpanzees’ and bovines’ lives each year in this way!
Happy Birthday, Jessie! We hope you have a beautiful day!
Rayne and Willy B:
Lucky Lou:
Foxie!
Missy enjoying a pineapple bowl:
Sweet Terry:
Today JB has been working with a crew of people to make improvement’s to Young’s Hill, including finishing the new structures, planting more trees and adding irrigation. You would think this would make for a very stir crazy group of chimpanzee’s but they all managed to take it in stride and have a relatively quiet day together. It helps that they had a lot of activities and enrichment to keep them busy including juice pools, TV time and, of course, supervising Jake when he was left alone to mow on Young’s Hill. Join Jamie & Co for a day in the Chimp House in today’s blog video!
Foxie asked me to babysit her doll for her today, and I quickly tucked her baby in for safekeeping until Foxie was ready to have her back. I came back a little while later to see if Foxie wanted her baby back yet, and that interaction turned into a lovely play session for us both (eventually resulting in Foxie taking her doll back, only to quickly change her mind and return her to me). Foxie is such a fun chimpanzee friend to have. She is spunky and fun and oh so silly! I often admire her and her wonderful personality from a distance, watching her play with Burrito or Katelyn or her dolls. She is a busy chimpanzee woman! It makes it all the more special when she invites me to spend time with her one-on-one, and I will drop just about anything to do just that!
Here is a picture of Foxie resting this morning, preparing herself for her busy day!
The group of 9 also had an exciting day today as they tried out some new toys Diana found for them! Honey B was the first to check out the toy hammer, but Rayne seemed to enjoy it the most. She spent most of her afternoon carrying it around with her, examining it, and manipulating it with her mouth. Rayne seems to be really enjoying all of the new items they have received recently!
Enjoy some photos below of Rayne and her hammer:
And here are some bonus photos from the day!
Cy looking at his orange peel
Cy with an orange peel in his mouth as he enjoys today’s lunch forage!
Dora loves avocados!
Lucky is such a beautiful chimpanzee
Over the past few days, I have been gathering photos and thinking about a theme for today’s blog. At first, it was going to be about Rayne holding her new broccoli enrichment toy. However, this morning, Dora allowed me to take some amazing portraits of her. So then I ran with the idea of writing about the “Small, but Mighty Dora”. But then… Burrito started playing with Mr. Caterpillar! After that, Lucky and Willy let me take some awesome portraits too. So today I thought, why not have it all, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I hope you enjoy the video of Burrito playing as he is always making our day brighter. And of course, all the bonus photos!
Mr. Burrito Caterpillar:
When the weather gets nicer, we often find Cy like this 🙂
Yesterday was a beautiful day. So beautiful that Honey B decided to hold out in the Chute 🙂
Lucky portrait:
And a Lucky smooch:
Mave grooming herself in the chute next to Dora:
Rayne relaxing in a nest:
Rayne holding her broccoli toy and enjoying the warm greenhouse:
Rayne’s typical breakfast spot, however, yesterday she brought this brush with her and never let it go:
She has amazing balance:
Willy B checking himself out:
And the little mighty Dora enjoying the warm sunshine in the chute this morning:
If Burrito was a human, I almost certainly think he would be a reality TV buff. He might even have a favorite soap opera that he never misses an episode of. At the very least, he would be the captain of the neighborhood watch program and always up on the latest gossip. All that said, he’s pretty obsessed with the drama filled lives of the other group of chimpanzees. The more drama involved, the more likely Burrito is watching. If a squabble breaks out in Cy’s group, you can reliably find Burrito plastered to a window in the playroom, trying to get a view of the happenings, and dare I say? rooting for chaos. If things are calm and quiet, with no visible neighbors, Burrito will gesture, bounce and make raspberry sounds so that caregivers will turn on the TV, “tuned” of course, to a playlist of videos of his neighbors. His busybody nature knows no bounds!
Why all the drama you may ask? Loud arguments are a natural part of chimpanzee group culture. It also appears that Cy’s group is still working out their dominance hierarchy after being integrated into a group of 9 just a couple of year’s ago. Here’s Willy B starting a subtle display seemingly geared towards intimidating Gordo and Terry:
On the bright side, having interesting neighbors does seem to mean that there’s rarely a dull moment in Burrito’s day.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about forages on Young’s Hill and trying something different by placing “jackpots” in some of the harder to reach areas. Today, I decided to up the ante and place even more jackpots around Young’s Hill to see who will get what. Similar to the aforementioned blog, it should be to nobody’s surprise Missy was the “winner” at finding most of today’s jackpots.
I wasn’t able to race up the hill in time to catch her snagging the whole ear of corn in one of the trees. I was, however, able to to catch her grabbing what essentially looked like a huge Easter egg.
A whole sweet onion!
While Missy was relishing in her discovery, Jamie also found a jackpot that unintentionally seemed to be made for her.
A jackpot of a decent sized stash of pear and chow biscuits in the hammock. She seemed pretty happy with her discovery.
Then the neighbors came out.
Time to hide all enjoyment and act serious. First a small patrol to let them know she’s serious.
Then resuming to forage like it’s no big deal.
There was still a hidden bell pepper amongst one of the many logs on Young’s Hill by the time I had to head back to attend our staff meeting. I’m not sure if anybody has found it yet. Only to ravens circling Young’s Hill and The Bray know.
Bonus Photos!
Foxie
Mave + Friends
Early mornings in Cy’s group can be pretty rowdy. Some of the boys (usually Willy B, but occasionally Gordo, Terry, or Cy) will begin displaying at some ungodly hour—5 or 6am if we’re lucky, or 2am if they know we have to work in the chimp house the next day—and the whole group will take turns screaming, pant hooting, or even chasing each other around. The chimps don’t usually bed down for the night, per se, but instead engage in first sleep, second sleep, and so on, sometimes moving to a new nest each time. But as the sun begins to rise over the Bray, things start to change.
One by one, they make their way to Greenhouse 2 (the Oakwood Greenhouse), compelled by the sun. As the greenhouse heats up and becomes bathed in a warm glow, the chimps groom, nap, and engage in their favorite activities together. This is the one time each day when the group reliably comes together as a whole (with one typical exception, of course!). I think of them as the Sunrise Committee, and when the Committee convenes, I know I can drink my coffee in peace.
If you know Honey B, you know she’s not one for committees. So this is usually her personal time, when she gets to enjoy the freedom of being alone. Sometimes she’ll pull one of the committee members for a game of chase or mall walking, but it’s rare to see her in the middle of the grooming session.
