Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
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Cy and George continue to live together as we move forward with integrating George into Cy’s group. In case you missed it, we have been in the process of day-long introductions with the remaining members of Cy’s group (Gordo, Terry, Rayne, and Lucky have already had theirs) as well as Mave before we continue with building up the group around Cy and George.
In today’s blog video, come along for grooming session with George and Cy!
We continue to make progress in introducing George to Cy’s group. This past week, George spent the day with Lucky (and Cy). As George navigates living with other chimpanzees, he is also learning that sometimes, he might have to share. See today’s blog video to watch how Lucky and George (with help from Cy!) navigated a conflict over their shared love of paper, and how they spent the rest of their day together.
Don’t forget, Willy B’s birthday is just around the corner! He’ll be turning 35, and will be celebrating with as many of his favorite bouncy toys as we can provide him with. If you’d like to purchase a bouncy toy for Willy’s birthday, see our chewy and Amazon wish lists, and look for the Ruff Dawg toys!
George and Cy continue to live together as one step of many in our efforts to integrate George into Cy’s group. There is not much to report at this point, which is good news! They continue to get along well and are navigating the intricacies of living with someone else, including where to nest at night.
Meanwhile, life goes on throughout the Chimp House. Today everyone is making the most of some sunshine and spending time relaxing in their Greenhouses. A certain someone came up to greet me as I was walking around the Chimp House, looking for inspiration for this blog. So now…let’s play a game of “Who’s that chimp?!” I’ve placed the photos in order of hardest to identify to easiest (in my opinion). See how few photos it takes for you to guess who it is!
Time to get your final guesses in!! Scroll down to reveal the answer.
It’s Lucky! She was enjoying watching the camera as I took photos, and sat patiently as I did my best to capture even a little bit of her beauty in a photo. In case you missed it – Caregiver Jenna threw a great party to celebrate Lucky’s birthday this week!
Speaking of birthdays…Willy B’s birthday is coming up on November 30th, and we’d like to get him as many durable bouncy toys as we can! He loves to bounce and throw them (and Gordo enjoys them too!). If you’d like to send some durable bouncy toys for Willy B’s birthday, check out our Chewy wish list and consider donating any of the Ruff Dawg toys from our list.
We are continuing the process of introducing George to Cy’s group of 6, and are preparing for a very exciting next step. Now seems like a good time to provide you all with a synopsis of what we have done so far, and where we hope to go next. If all goes well, George will soon be living with other chimpanzees full-time.
We began our introduction process with short (~1 hour) afternoon meetings with George and each of the individuals of Cy’s group, first focusing on Cy, Terry, and Rayne as those that we thought would be the most accepting of George. We wanted to give George positive introduction experiences to set him up for success before introducing him to others who may be more difficult. George did very well with Cy and Terry to start, and over the course of multiple meetings had some misunderstandings, all of which they were able to navigate. In these initial intros, he struggled the most with Rayne, which we later saw to be a trend with other females when he met Lucky and Dora. With the males, he was often quick to engage in play, and later would allow himself to be groomed, whereas the females seem to find him to be more of a threat (understandably – his displays are impressive!) and often sought reassurance or to groom, which he seems more uncomfortable with than play. George was also uncomfortable with being groomed in certain areas, and would quickly disengage when individuals tried to groom him in those areas. The females were generally less accepting of this behavior, and would become upset.
Cy grooms George
Once George had met Cy, Terry, and Rayne on multiple occasions, we started to include individuals from the remainder of Cy’s group into the introduction schedule. George met Gordo and we were happily surprised by how well they did together, and how calm Gordo remained even when George displayed repeatedly. George met Dora, then Lucky, and as we went, we changed our introduction plan to accommodate what the chimps were showing us that they needed. We introduced George to Mave to help him learn how to interact with females, as Mave is generally more confident than Lucky and Dora, and Mave showed us she was willing to hold George accountable when he acted inappropriately. We lengthened the time of the introductions, and let misunderstandings and conflicts play out more without closing the door to separate the chimps, though we were prepared to do so if needed. This is difficult to do as the human observer – we want to protect our chimpanzee friends, and conflict feels scary. But conflict is an important part of chimpanzee life, as is the reconciliation that follows. We needed George to learn (or show us he knows) how to reconcile after a conflict, before we could feel confident in future integration into a larger social group. These longer introductions allowed the chimpanzees time to reconcile, and George showed us that given time (and without the option to just ignore the other individual because they were no longer sharing space), he can do it.
During this stage, Terry and George had several conflicts during their introductions, but were given time to reconcile and by the end of their time together were again playing and grooming. This is promising for George’s future as he joins a larger social group, as he was able to navigate each of these situations successfully.
Terry grooms George
From there, we moved to all day introductions of one individual of Cy’s group with George (for Terry, Cy, Gordo, and Rayne). We chose to continue afternoon introductions with Dora and Lucky, as we thought they would be more successful in all day introductions down the line, with Cy there as well to lessen their anxiety. During these all day introductions, they got to experience more of a normal day together. They ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together and were given access to the chute and The Bray. They spent more time without direct supervision of the humans (though we were monitoring them from afar via video monitors).
Gordo grooms George
The next step? Cy comes to live with George, and we will begin to build the group around them. Before adding in more individuals, we will give opportunities for Cy to assert his dominance over George to help him understand where his place will be within the larger group. A lot of this will come simply from living together full time. Cy may demand first access to his favorite foods at meal time (like corn), to get the first look at the newest magazines, or to be the first one to interact with the humans. From there, we will continue to follow the chimps’ lead as we navigate the introduction process. I’m excited for the opportunities ahead, and hopeful for George as he begins another big step in his journey here.
When I first started as staff, I was told that being invited to play with Missy is a rare gift. Sometimes it only comes around once a year! In today’s blog video, watch as Missy makes sure Caregiver Ellen gets her steps in with a game of chase, with a hide-and-seek twist.
One of the biggest holidays of the year at the sanctuary is quickly approaching…Jamieween! Check out our wish list to send gifts for Jamie’s big day!
See today’s blog video to learn more about some of the many ways we safely interact with the chimpanzees while coming along for a morning of play with Gordo!
At the end of last year, I shared some of the new food puzzles we were able to create for the chimpanzees thanks to the support of our generous donors in last year’s Comfort & Joy Online Auction. In that post, I promised a follow-up on the new puzzles I was creating, and here it is!
These spinning slow feeders have been a huge hit with the chimpanzees so far. We smear small amounts of different high value food items (like mashed banana, peanut butter, and sugar free pudding) on each layer of the puzzle, and the chimps must spin the different layers around to be able to access all of the food within the puzzle. See Cy’s group (and George) work on them in today’s video. Thank you to Jamie R. for these wonderful new puzzles!
