Robin made a special sponsor-a-day donation today to celebrate young Robert’s 6th birthday and to also honor the birth of his cousin Luke!
Thank you, Robin! We hope Robert and Luke have a terrific day that includes time to play and time to rest.
Today is in Memory of Margaret Elizabeth Sharp
Sandra chose to sponsor today with this lovely message about her mother:
My beloved mother passed away last August, and in honor of what would have been her birthday, I send love to both the sanctuary and its precious residents. My mom was shy, endlessly loving, kind beyond measure, non-judgemental, vulnerable . . . I think she would very much recognize the chimps as kindred spirits and cheer on their resilience, autonomy, and place in this world.
Thank you so, so much for the message and for remembering your mother by supporting the sanctuary, Sandra!
Cautiously Carefree
The chimpanzees still don’t do much lounging on Young’s Hill. They spend quiet moments outside, to be sure, but it’s rare to see any of them just fully relax like they do when they’re indoors. Even when we’ve put out blankets, we haven’t seen them really nest.
Perhaps because they spent decades living indoors in laboratories without access to big open spaces, the outdoors seem to require more vigilance. I guess I feel the same way, come to think of it.
This morning, I did catch Foxie lying down way up high on the structure donors named “Jamie’s Lookout”.
You might notice that she’s still holding onto the ladder.
Even with this tether to security, you can tell that she is happy because she’s rubbing her big toe and second toe together – a classic and unique sign of happiness for Foxie.
Missy noticed Foxie in repose, and came over with a big playface. Then ensued a very short tickle/wrestle game (so short I didn’t capture a decent photo).
Missy then spied on J.B. who was with the cattle on the other property,
took a moment to sit next to the now upright Foxie,
and resumed her position on the other side of the lookout.
Foxie did some careful inspecting of the structural integrity of the platform before making her way back down.
A Subtle Hint from Jamie
Last week, you may recall that I had a difficult time choosing a subject for a blog post. Well, here’s an explanation of one of the reasons why.
The enrichment theme for that day was “reading day” and Jamie took that to heart.
She seemed particularly enamored with a Dwell magazine. I even saw her gather up the magazine when she was moving from the front rooms to the playroom.
We see the chimpanzees carry blankets from one space to another and their favorite things (dolls for Foxie, boots for Jamie, wooden or plastic objects for Burrito), but it was the first time I’ve seen a chimpanzee so deliberately take a magazine that wasn’t smeared with peanut butter into a new space.
I didn’t get a sense that it was any particular page that she was interested in, as she carefully and thoroughly looked through the entire magazine:
Included in the reading day was a large catalog full of all sorts of products. When I went into the playroom in the evening to spot clean one last time, I found the catalog on the catwalk opened to this page:
Did boot-loving Jamie purposely leave the catalog for me to find, hinting at a future gift idea?
Missy’s Rumination
When presented with an edible landscape, what is one to do?
Perhaps first, a moment of reflection:
And then a careful up-close contemplation:
And, finally, a decision:
A Picture Worth…
I had the hardest time decided what to do for the blog today. There were many moments worthy of sharing and even more thoughts floating around my head. I could have written a novel.
Instead, I decided to let the two images below speak for themselves. What do you see?
Lord Byron’s poem “She Walks in Beauty” came to mind with the photo of Negra.
P.S. The “featured” image above of Annie’s profile reminded me of a Victorian cameo. I’m not sure why the chimpanzees brought to mind the 1800s today.
Two Small Words
I’ve been writing these two small words over and over lately: Thank you.
Donors to the sanctuary made our year-end fundraising soar to new and unexpected heights, and we have been quite busy sending out thank you letters and donation receipts.
I love to write those words, and I love thinking about each person as they made their donation. Some donors I know very well, and I can picture them as I write. Others are new and mysterious, and I wonder how they came to know about the chimpanzee sanctuary in Cle Elum.
Sometimes (often) those two words don’t feel nearly big enough to contain all of the gratefulness that I’m feeling. I hope the actual depth of my appreciation is somehow transferred into the ink as I write.
It really is incredible that people support the sanctuary and take the time and effort to back up that support with often hard-earned money. Knowing that we have this shared concern and mission is powerful.
I feel lucky to have a job where I not only get to be around amazing and unique non-humans, but I also have the opportunity to see the generosity and hope that our own species is capable of demonstrating.
So, reflecting on all of this today, I started to think about how the chimpanzees show gratitude. Thankfulness is a pretty complicated emotion that is probably an amalgam of different feelings, and maybe something that carries a bit of cultural individuality.
We don’t claim to be able to be inside the heads of the chimpanzees, even those we know very well, so I can’t say for sure that they experience thankfulness like I do.
That’s the conundrum about perception, though – I only know what I experience. I can guess that other people/beings experience the same or similar feelings as I do based on imagining how I would feel in a given situation and observing their outward behaviors, but it’s really just a guess.
Given my limitations of knowing much of anything about what’s outside of myself, I do think that the chimpanzees show and maybe feel something akin to gratitude.
When we serve food, we bring it through the chimp area first, as illustrated in the popular “pasta cam” that J.B. created on Burrito’s birthday. The excitement that the chimpanzees exhibit and the satisfying groans they make when we provide them with food is, I think, at least tinged with gratefulness.
Among themselves, when one of the chimpanzees reaches out for reassurance (like Negra here):
and then receives the reassurance they are seeking (from Jamie in this case):
I imagine there’s some thankfulness that’s part of what the reassurance-seeker experiences.
There was a more dramatic experience last fall when we had to suture Jody’s eyelid that I couldn’t help but believe that Jody was thankful for the humans, even though we had to do something that she otherwise would not have appreciated.
And then there are just the little everyday moments when the chimpanzees do a little something that makes me wonder if they are feeling grateful, like when old friends visit and walk with Jamie or today when I caught Missy’s gaze as she turned from the window she was looking out, and she proceeded to walk over and let me groom her back through the fencing.
I can’t say for sure if Missy was thankful that I was there to share the moment with her, but I can say definitively that I felt a whole lot of gratitude.
