Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.
The chimps are endlessly observant of things that us lowly humans fail to notice. Today, as I took a few photos of Mave using the sanctuary’s cell phone, she got that certain look in her eye and i realized she was examining her own reflection in the back of our new transparent phone case.
The lovely and eagle-eyed Mave:
Step 1: Approach a friend and start grooming them. Hope for reciprocation.
Missy reaches out to groom Jamie:
Step 2: Decide this isn’t quite the kind of reciprocity she was looking for.
Jamie grooms Missy’s eyelid:
Step 3: Move on and decide to do some self-grooming with a small stick.
Step 4: Find a different friend who is also partaking in some self-grooming.
Annie grooming her own leg:
Step 5: Look a little wistful.
Step 6: Lay down and relax.
This afternoon, as Willy B enjoyed himself in the courtyard, the other 7 chimps decided to cause some commotion. Foxie lead the charge, working her friends up into a flurry of pant-hoots and raucous displays. I always think of it as them yelling a mix of “GET OFF MY LAWN,” and “Oh my -that guy is DREAMY!” at their neighbors. Chimps have complicated emotions and equally complicated relationships.
Through all that noise, I found Negra, alone in her Zen bubble. She had better things to do than get herself worked up over some silly guy.
*Bonus* Annie and Jamie during a few moments of calm:
A common question we get from curious supporters is “how much do the chimps eat?” While we don’t actually weigh their daily portions out or count calories, we use a rough estimate and a little bit of trial and error to adjust the chimps’ diets accordingly. Lately we’ve been serving Burrito and Foxie an extra portion of primate chow since they are two of our more slender residents.
Burrito loves emptying bags of primate chow into his mouth and is a big fan of this “Burrito gets more” plan. This is an older photo, but you get the idea!
In general, the chimps each eat 3 servings of fruit for breakfast (one of which is a fruit smoothie), 3 servings of vegetables at lunch, and 3 servings of veggies/fruit for dinner. What makes up a serving is a little open to interpretation, but you could think of a standard sized apple being considered 1 serving. Oh and I almost forgot! We serve Willy B extra produce each day because he’s a big guy and needs to maintain his muscular physique. All in all, our fridges empty at a considerable rate.
In the age of COVID-19 we’ve had to reorganize a lot of the ways we provide care for the chimpanzees including how we get the chimps their weekly shipment of fresh produce. Thursdays have become the sanctuary’s “produce day.” JB drives to a neighboring city and does our shopping at a wholesale store, then staff member Anthony and volunteer caregiver Lisa do a mass washing and reorganizing of our 2 fridges.
If you would like to help keep the chimps’ fridges stocked full of fresh fruits and veggies, you can become a Produce Patron on our website. The chimps and those that love them thank you! Here’s today’s well-stocked veggie fridge:
We live to serve the chimpanzees and they know it. Jamie has decided that today’s blog should be a short one so that we can groom and walk together for the rest of the day. Here are a few photos of Burrito putting staff caregiver Chad through his workout routine.
OK back to work!
Age: 31
Nickname(s): Mavous
Favorite foods: Avocado, coconut, pineapple
Favorite activity: Chillin’
Important skills: Wrestler extraordinaire
One thing she would take with her to a deserted island: A pair of toe socks- plus she’d be pretty happy if that island came with its own coconut tree.
Taking photos of chimpanzees in captivity can be a challenge. For human and chimpanzee safety, caregivers never go in the enclosures with the chimps. Since we can’t share the same space as the chimps, staff take all the blog photos and videos through a mesh or wire barrier that separates us from the chimpanzees and vice versa.
We get a pretty common question when first time followers see photos like this of Jamie next to the caging:
Fortunately, Diana wrote an easy to reference blog a couple of years ago to answer the question “Why are the Chimps in Cages?”
Sometimes the mesh makes a nice but unintentional little halo around your photo subject, but usually it just makes it hard to focus the camera on the subject.
Mave:
An added challenge to taking photos of the chimps is the chimps themselves…
We might see special moments like Burrito carrying a Dora doll in his mouth and sitting in a well-lit window. We run to get the camera, then of course, as he sees us coming, he demands a game of chase rather than a photo shoot.
Or we might be taking photos of Missy grooming in the greenhouse…
And know that Jamie is waiting for us to groom with her instead:
Tools and poky chimp fingers can make photo taking risky:
And the new 3 are often too close to the camera because they love looking at screens. So sometimes it’s safer to point and shoot without looking in the view finder and see what the camera focuses on.
Please enjoy these photos I’ve titled ” Willy B: Up close and oddly focused”:
