Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Diana

Terry’s Tendency Towards Tiny Things

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Terry is a big chimpanzee who pays particular attention to tiny things.

His fascination with flowers has less to do with the flowers themselves and more to do with any tiny insect that he can detect and examine.

Chad wrote a blog post a while back with a poem he penned, and photos to go along, entitled Teeny Tiny Terry.

That poem caught the attention of Mary Lee Jensvold who sent it along to her daughter Hannah who made a very special illustrated and hand bound for an online auction.

I can’t say that we have any hand-bound books in our upcoming HOOT! online auction, but we do have some really great items, including our first ever CSNW yearbook that caregivers Jenna and Ellen have been putting together just for the event!

The online auction is open to anyone and runs October 1st – October 6th.

We also have some really amazing and fun items for the in-person event. Time is running out to get tickets, so if you are anywhere near Seattle, reserve your space now!

If you are unable to attend the in-person event, be sure to RSVP to watch the livestream of the HOOT! program.

 

A Day of Play (Contest)

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I’d count this contest as a success for everyone! Watch the video above and let me know if you agree.

Towards the end of the day, there were a few names not checked off, but J.B. swooped in and got Mave to play, Chad had a  play session with Honey B, and Jamie decided she would indulge me. I did show Annie my toes (she really likes bare feet). She acknowledged them, but perhaps wasn’t impressed enough to take my lead towards playing. There’s always tomorrow!

Bonus photos of Jamie with her forage haul that she brought into the greenhouse and put in a box.

Shared Experiences

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I had a moment last week.

It was the first time that Jamie’s group was in their outdoor habitat, Young’s Hill, while George had access the other habitat, the Bray.

J.B. shared a video on Monday in his blog post.

I was in the human corridor in between the habitats. Missy and Foxie began walking along the fence where I was standing as George ran outside. I was thinking about Foxie having just turned 49 and Missy’s 5oth in just a few days.

I was thinking about the last seventeen years we’ve spent together and all of the experiences we’ve shared. Together, we’ve gone through the same things that I’ve gone through with human friends and family. There have been days of worry and days of pure elation. There have been some scary times when we’ve done our best to comfort and reassure each other. We’ve faced a lot of uncertainty together, and many, many laughs. We’ve even been together in times of shared grief.

That moment, as I walked with them, we were experiencing something new once again as, George, a chimpanzee they weren’t familiar with, watched them from the other habitat. Foxie held out her hand to ask for reassurance and I held mine out to her and nodded my head. I told her it was okay and George was a nice guy. She seemed reassured and continued up the hill. Missy was calm and brave and curious. And the three of us continued walking together, as old friends.

I glanced back at George and thought about how everything is so new to him. I contemplated the experiences that we’ve already shared together and thought about the amazing experiences and the change and growth that’s ahead for us both. For us all.

I would like to share an experience with all of you reading. For those who are able, I really want to see you at HOOT! 2025 in Seattle! We’ll be sharing more about George’s story and you’ll leave with an even more profound understanding of the sanctuary and the chimpanzees. Get your tickets right now!

You really do want to come in person if you are able, so you can share the experience with a room full of wonderful people. But, if you really can’t make it in person, definitely RSVP today for online viewing and participation.

I’ll leave you with a few photos taken by staff yesterday during Missy’s 5oth celebration.

 

Annie with one of the watermelon bowls she scored!:

 

Cy after eating a tomato cupcake:

 

Foxie foraging with one of her new birthday dolls:

Gordo with a glowing, mystical watermelon skin:

Terry Grooms George

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Both Terry and George did so well with each other! It’s really interesting to watch George sit still while Terry is grooming him. Generally, chimpanzees reciprocate more readily. He did the same thing when we introduced George to Cy for the first time.

George does groom his human caregivers, so he’s not unfamiliar with it overall – grooming seems to be pretty hardwired in chimpanzees.

It’s hard to say what George is thinking. Maybe he’s playing it safe and making sure he doesn’t send the wrong signal or maybe being groomed by a big male is intimidating.

He’s really doing remarkably well for a 21-year-old chimpanzee who hasn’t had much social experience, and probably no social experience with adult males! Go George Go!

Sky Walking

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The original publication mentioned in the video from Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution is called: Foraging strategy and tree structure as drivers of arboreality and suspensory behaviour in savannah-dwelling chimpanzees. Click here for the link to the publication.

Click here for one popular science translation of the study: Walking on Two Legs May Have Evolved in Trees, Not on the Ground.

There’s more to the study than the quick video above. It includes discussion of the type of habitat in Tanzania where the study chimpanzees live. Unlike the dense forest ecosystems where many chimpanzees live, the habitat of the site in Tanzania is called savanna-mosaic, which always strikes me as poetic or romantic or something. It’s thought to be similar to the type of ecosystem where early humans adapted to thrive.

I was talking about the study with J.B., and that conversation caused me to think about studying chimpanzees in order to learn more about humans or human origins.

I’ve definitely said it before, but it doesn’t hurt to reflect again on how and why chimpanzees have been bought/sold/traded by humans in the pet, entertainment, and biomedical industries. They are frequently thought of and used as stand-ins for humans, yet they are different and separate enough that humans tend to feel less moral obligation towards them.

Their likeness to us has been, all to often, to their detriment. I don’t think that’s the case in this particular study. I do find theories about early humans interesting. But I think it is the case in an update to another story that has been in the news.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog post sharing a sad update to the Tonia Haddix / Chimp Crazy saga. If you missed that update, you can read the full post here. Just two days ago, Haddix was finally sentenced to almost four years in prison for lying under oath that a chimpanzee named Tonka had died, when in fact she was secretly keeping him in her basement. She has not yet been charged for the second chimpanzee she was trying to hide just months ago.

Her lawyer made a statement that Haddix had a difficult upbringing and history with humans, so had turned instead to animals for comfort. I think it was clear in the documentary Chimp Crazy that she felt chimpanzees in particular filled a need she had, even referring to Tonka as being more of a human than a chimpanzee. If she saw evidence of that it was because the humans around him were attempting to assimilate him into their world, rather than seeing him for who he is.

Haddix is an extreme example of this warped vision, but it’s easy to slip into this view because chimpanzees are so similar to humans and so culturally and socially adaptive. Celebrating and understanding their differences is perhaps more important to helping them than seeing their similarities.

I hope we can do both.

Let’s Go… Scrumping?

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There are plenty of “pop-science” interpretations of the original publication mentioned in this video (including this video, I suppose!).

If you search for “scrumping chimpanzee” you will find those articles. For the original publication, click here.

I appreciate the authors’ (Nathaniel J Dominy, Luke D Fannin, Erin R Vogel, Martha M Robbins, and Catherine Hobaiter) fun with their section titles–instead of a Results section, they had Last Call and rather than a Discussion, they had Closing Time.

Happy Scrumping!

Good Morning Negra and Willy B!

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Negra has been adventuring for a couple of days. The clips in the video above were from today.

Yesterday, she was lured to Young’s Hill with a lettuce forage, and J.B. snapped a few photos:

She even climbed up on one of the structures, which is unusual for her!

I felt very lucky to be a witness to Willy B’s solo adventure this morning. There was some construction noise from a distance that Willy B may have decided to investigate.

He displayed when he got to very top structure. Maybe he was responding to the construction noise or maybe he was celebrating going all the way to the top!