Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Negra has always loved when her caregivers dance for her. She is great at finding the beat and grooving along with us. I personally don’t know where this came from but her passion for rhythm has sparked silliness and laughter in all of us to entertain her with our good and bad dance moves.
See that girl, watch her gleam, she’s our Dancing Queen!
Remodeling a chimpanzee enclosure for accessibility comes with a whole set of new challenges. Namely, you have to contend with a chimp who still makes her own decisions.
Today was all play! Burrito may be one of the most unserious chimps I have ever met! He has an infectious energy that you can’t help but pick up! It seems like Gordo and George also caught some of Burrito’s energy because they were being quite silly too!
I hope you all have a lovely Wednesday!
Thank you to long-time supporters Syd and Diane Marcus who sponsored today in honor of Her Royal Highness, Queen Negra, with this message:
We have loved Negra since the day she came to the sanctuary. She brightens every day with her presence, wisdom and courage. Negra is a true Queen who means the world to us. We love her so very much.
Last month, the world lost Dr. Burité Galdikas, a scientist and conservationist who had studied and worked to protect orangutans starting in her 20s. She was 79 at the time of her death following a battle with lung cancer.
Dr. Galdikas passed away in Los Angeles, but her main home was in Borneo, where today she will be laid to rest.
Orangutan Foundation International, the organization she founded, will be live-streaming her funeral at this link: https://www.youtube.com/live/zH_g7hOs9L4?si=p7Y-cmWsRVvBlw6j
The formal funeral will start around 8:00 p.m. PT / 11:00 p.m. ET. The stream should be available starting around 4:30 p.m. Pacific Time, during which time some semi-ceremonial preparations like the digging of her grave may be shown. OFI shared that there may be some open-casket time during and before the funeral.
Biruté’s contributions to the understanding of orangutans and the perils they are facing in their wild habitats in Borneo and Sumatra and her tireless work to help them, cannot be overstated.
Every profile of Dr. Galdikas mentions her association with Dr. Jane Goodall, who died last year at 91 after decades of non-stop speaking engagements that highlighted chimpanzees and humans’ obligation to protect the natural world, and Dian Fossey, who was killed in Rwanda in 1985 while studying and protecting gorillas. These three influential women were often referred to as “The Trimates.”
We were honored with a visit from Dr. Galdikas exactly eight years ago today, on April 14, 2018.
Here’s a photo that Katelyn took of Dr. Galdikas with then interns Jake Funkhouser and Ruth Linsky, both of whom continue their ape advocacy and conservation work and primatology education by pursuing doctoral degrees, with Ruth working closely with Dr. Galdikas and the orangutans in Borneo.
I’ve read several obituaries since her passing, and this one from The Guardian I particularly liked for it’s depth of information and, especially, for this quote from primatologist Mireya Mayor upon meeting Dr. Galdikas at a wildlife film festival where they were both being honored, “She seemed like someone who had stepped out of the forest temporarily … her heart and mind were still there.”
Take it from Gordo: If you can’t be high-ranking, be clever.
Don’t mind me…I’m just up here to enjoy the view. Clearly, you guys got all the fruit, which you obviously deserve, what with being so high-ranking and all. And even if there were fruit up here, which there’s obviously not, I certainly didn’t watch the volunteers put it up there on the roof.
Researchers have argued for decades over whether chimpanzees possess a theory of mind—in other words, do chimpanzees have the ability to know what other chimpanzees know or believe? Like most appraisals of nonhuman intelligence, theory of mind studies have relied heavily on contrived and unnatural experiments carried out in behavioral laboratories and other captive settings. As is so often the case, we force other animals to play on our terms and then dismiss them as unintelligent when they fail to meet our standards. But even in these conditions, with the deck stacked against them, chimpanzees have passed nearly every challenge thrown their way. They regularly demonstrate the ability to understand both the goals and intentions of others (a sticking point is the issue of whether chimpanzees know when another chimpanzee possesses a false belief, as opposed to plain old ignorance).
Of course, not all complex social behavior requires a full-fledged theory of mind, but as members of a social and highly competitive species, chimpanzees clearly benefit from being able to imagine other chimpanzees’ perspectives and adjust their behavior accordingly, especially when they lack the might to impose their will on others. I remember learning in school about “sneaky guy” mating techniques, in which the lower-ranking males invite females for a secret tryst without catching the attention of the dominant males who, if they were to witness the attempt, would likely punish a subordinate for such behavior. How do they do this? It depends on the community, but in some areas, the males simply tear up a leaf in a particular way while making love eyes at the object of their affection.
Gordo is a classic sneaky guy (though his romantic overtures are a bit more explicit!). Always on the lookout for the dominant chimps, he knows what he’s allowed to do in their presence—and what he can get away with when no one is looking.
Jamie was hanging out on the catwalk of the playroom:
George was sitting by a window grooming himself in the Marmot Mountain playroom:
We have a lot of photos of Lucky from this angle. She’s sitting on the “tree” structure in the Oakwood Greenhouse, looking down while being groomed by her brother, Cy:
I liked this close-up of Lucky’s chin:
Negra spent time with Annie today in their greenhouse:
A lot of people have reached out asking about Negra, her declining mobility, and her health. Thank you all so much for loving her.
We are definitely in a “hope for the best and prepare for the worst” mindset right now, and we wanted to be sure you, too, were prepared, as much as that’s possible. We can’t predict how much time she has left, and her quality of life considerations are unique to her. She’s never been very active or overly social, so being separated from the group is probably easier on her than it would be on most of the other chimpanzees.
Today, she still got out to the greenhouse and climbed to the top of the structure – not as easily as she used to, but she did it. She ate some of her favorite foods, she was visited by some old human friends, and she let Annie groom her.
We’ve added some hand-holds and hanging fire hose in the front rooms so she has more to hold onto when climbing up to the benches, and we’re working on some other modifications to help her get to where she likes to spend time.
Here she is this afternoon in a nest up high on a bench in one of the front rooms:
