We’re getting ready for the small groundbreaking ceremony this afternoon! The actual construction on Phase 1 of the expansion will start in a little over two weeks, but today we’re having a ceremonial start to this huge project. I can’t even express how happy we are to have arrived at this day and how incredibly grateful I am for every single person who has donated these last two years as we fundraised to begin this project.
We have a lot of work ahead of us, but it’s amazing to be finally at the first step towards bringing more chimpanzees home.
In the meantime, I bring you my thoughts this morning as I walked around Young’s Hill with Jamie, Missy, Jody, and Foxie walking together on the inside of their habitat…
In the wild, chimpanzees societies are patriarchal. With their might, size, and testosterone, even low-ranking adult males are said to outrank all of the adult females in any given group. In captivity, things are often quite different. Every group of chimpanzees that I have worked with for an extended period of time has had a strong female that clearly called many of the shots and at least occasionally put their foot down with males in the group.
Maybe it’s because the chimpanzees I’ve known have not been socialized into a normal chimpanzee society – they were raised in human environments or spent much of their time living alone or in pairs within laboratory settings. Or maybe part of it is that chimpanzees are flexible and adaptable, figuring their relationships out as they go rather than having a rigid, strictly biologically-driven social order. Most likely it’s a bit of this and a bit of that.
Even though it’s not what they would be doing in the wild, and it would likely be much better if they were living in a more balanced male-to-female group, I can’t help but admire the female power that exists at the sanctuary.
Like today, when this all-female patrol walked around the perimeter of their territory.
Is that random, or the current hierarchy of ladies?
It’s random, though somewhat the hierarchy of the females, depending on what measure of dominance you are considering!
Thanks for your thoughts and insights Diana, very cool. Here’s to The Girls on patrol today. Aren’t they beautiful all in a line. And look at Missy with that yellow haired doll, that made me do a double take! Not sure I’ve ever noticed Missy with one of Foxie’s dolls before.
Such a momentous time looking forward to watching the progress. Good luck in your new extension
It is so interesting that these female chimps instinctively patrol. In the wild, it is the males who patrol so I would not even guess it would be instinctual to female chimps in any situation. However, society has to be organized so if there is only one male and six females, somebody has to do it! After all, there are snakes out there to find!
It just breaks my heart to see how they used to live. No words to express my pain. Thank you a million times over for providing them with a new, loving home. So grateful they will have some happy years! <3 <3 <3
so, as so often happens, i now tears-of-sadness seeing where “the seven” came from. they are quickly replaced with tears-of-joy, of course. all that you do at CSNW for these wonderful people is truly, truly amazing. i do see them as people.
reflecting to last week where a neighbor of mine, in response to seeing a little girl playing said, “oh, to be so young again.” i said, “no. no-no-no. i do not want to go backwards at all. even providing me years and years more of life.” why not? this world that we are now living in is way too crazy for me. obviously, these school-shootings are tearing me up from the inside out and knowing how cruel-to-animals people can be is beyond my comprehension.
this technology world that we live in. not for me. nice to stay in touch with people, but way too much for me.
i’ll stick with the simple pleasures that the chimpanzees enjoy at CSNW. take the wisdom with the age. take the aches and pains with the age. grow old gracefully and leave this world when the good Lord calls me home . . . as it should be for i am way too sensitive of a person to live in a world that is so-so sad and cruel with no end in sight.
for clarification: i feel beyond blessed with the love of family and friends and to have a blessed life. again, it is about my entire world around me that seems just so-so sad.
so hope comes alive when i see what’s going on at CSNW and other sanctuaries around the world that help primates and all animals.
thanks for everything.
lisa