Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

J.B.

King of the Crow’s Nests

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Willy B decided he would try a few new things today.

He began by climbing to the top of Ryan’s Lookout. I was impressed just to see him do that much and thought he might have called it quits after that, since it took him several minutes and multiple attempts to figure out how to get back down. We have a backup plan for almost any situation imaginable but getting a chimp who is afraid of heights down from a climbing structure would not be easy.

But he was undeterred by that experience, or maybe even invigorated by it. He then set his sights on a crow’s nest.

Who is this guy? And he wasn’t content to climb just one crow’s nest. As soon as he awkwardly climbed down from the first, he headed straight to another one.

He spent quite a while up there, taking in the view and even watching intently as volunteer Carrie drove down the long driveway and off into town.

Getting down from the second crow’s nest was a bit quicker but no more graceful than from the first.

Willy B’s old buddies, Honey B and Mave, were outside keeping an eye on him during his many adventures. One of Honey B’s new favorite places is the Escher climbing structure, which is about halfway up the hill. It still surprises me to see her out there. She has a touch of light sensitivity and can often be seen shielding her eyes when outside in the bright sun. Either that or she’s trying to conceal her identity.

Mave waited patiently at the end of the boardwalk.

While Willy’s conquering of the crow’s nests may have been the biggest news of the afternoon, it was something more subtle that really caught my attention when he returned.

Mave was waiting to greet him at the bottom of the hill.

After bouncing and pant-grunting, Mave walked with Willy B back to the chute to be with the rest of the group.

And neither utilized the boardwalk.

This is a guy that couldn’t let his tender little toes touch grass even when his favorite foods were just a few steps away.

It’s a good reminder that progress in sanctuary work is often measured in years, even decades.

Don’t forget about Giving Day for Apes! We are hoping to compete for the most dollars raised for a North American sanctuary during the “Power Hour” of 10 – 11 a.m. PT / 1 – 2 p.m. ET tomorrow. Please consider making a donation to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest at that time!

Mercurial Males

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Male chimpanzees can be pretty cruel to the females in their group. Why are some of them such jerks sometimes?

From an evolutionary perspective, this aggression is thought to serve two functions. First, it may serve the purpose of establishing dominance. This is particularly true for adolescent males, who rise through the ranks in their communities by establishing dominance over each of the females before working their way into the adult male hierarchy. But it may be true for adults as well, as these displays of dominance can signal their fighting ability to other males in the group without the increased risks associated with directing aggression towards those other males.

Second, research suggests that, in adults, female-directed aggression by males also serves as a form of coercion. In some communities, males that exhibit more aggression towards females have been shown to sire more offspring by either increasing the probability that a female will mate with them or decreasing the probability that she will mate with someone else.

Most captive male chimpanzees, Willy B included, don’t even exhibit copulatory behavior, since they were raised in such atypical physical and social environments. It’s interesting then, and unfortunate, that this predisposition towards female-directed aggression nevertheless persists.

These same adult males and females can at other times be quite playful with one another. In wild environments, this appears to be more evident when resources are abundant, which suggests that play—known to have significant social and developmental benefits in adolescents—also benefits adults when time and energy are available. This may be why we see so much play in adult captive chimpanzees—after all, in better environments, most of the nutritional resources they need are all provided to them. Of course, some forms of play can be a mechanism to ease an underlying tension, which may be why play is so common before feeding times. But in most cases, it’s hard to see it as anything other than two chimps having fun.

When we study other animals, we don’t think in terms of “good” and “bad” behavior. Instead, we try to describe what is and develop explanations for how it came to be that way. Living with chimpanzees on a daily basis, though, can challenge this kind of impartiality. You cheer when you see them playing together and film it so others can share in their fun. And you become frustrated and upset with them when they fight. And before long you find yourself—biology be damned!—rooting for Honey B, who would sooner die than give an inch to any of those dumb, bullying boys.

 

Happy Birthday, Meredith!

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Today we are celebrating Meredith’s 9th birthday! Our girl Meredith went through a lot last year, having undergone several procedures over the winter to treat her arthritis and then enduring several months stuck in and around the barn during her recovery, but it was all worth it because she has spent a glorious summer roaming the upper pond pasture with her Mom, Honey, and second mom, Betsy.

We’re grateful to Tobin for sponsoring this day in the birthday girl’s honor. As Tobin says, “I’m glad that she’s part of the group of people that live at the sanctuary and I wish her a happy birthday and a good new year of life.”

Thanks, Tobin, and thanks to all of Meredith’s Bovine Buddies for caring for one of the sweetest cows we’ve ever known!

We’re Hiring a Chimp House Team Manager!

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Our Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest family has grown a lot over the last several years. With more chimpanzees and cows to care for and a larger staff and growing volunteer program to oversee, we decided it was time to split the Chimp House Manager position into two positions to better support the hardworking people that keep this sanctuary running. Anna will continue to manage our volunteers and interns, which means that the search has begun for someone to lead and inspire our amazing team of staff caregivers.

To learn more, click here. Please feel free to share this job posting with anyone who meets the qualifications!

Total Recall

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What did we do to incur such a biblical plague of snakes this year? It seems we are constantly recalling the chimps, though, mercifully, nearly all intruders have been of the garter or racer variety. But rattlesnakes abound in this canyon, and to keep them out of the habitats we have to ensure that not even a 1/2″ hole has formed in or underneath the fence that surrounds these five acres. Over the years, including this year, rattlesnake incursions have occurred, and we fortify those rodent tunnels where we suspect they enter with concrete and hardware cloth. Thankfully, Burrito appears to be far more cautious around snakes these days and the rest of the gang seems to know to keep some distance, though that doesn’t stop them from throwing dirt or rustling the bushes with sticks. They are also better at recall, which allows us to remove the snake before anyone pushes their luck.

Please remind me of all this when I am complaining about snow in a few months.

Reason #2 Why Gordo Will Never Be a Doctor

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The official term for fear of blood, wounds, and injuries is hemophobia. To say that Gordo is hemophobic is true and yet somehow insufficient. What we really need, and what appears to be absent from the literature, is a term for the fear of someone else’s injury which you yourself inflicted.

Last week, I was working in the garage at the house when the Bray erupted with screams, barks, and alarm calls. Did someone see a snake? Is the group fighting? I ran up to the chimp house to see what was going on, expecting to find the staff frantically gathering snake capture equipment or trying to track a conflict. Instead, everyone was going about their business as usual.

I asked what was going on. “Gordo is freaking out over Willy’s toe.” Oh, right.

You see, Gordo hates the sight of wounds. We’ve known this for some time. Thankfully he hasn’t had many opportunities to see one lately. But Willy B’s recent injury, and the subsequent amputation of the of tip of his toe, had Gordo enthralled. Which, come to think of it, highlights another way in which the term hemophobia is lacking when it comes to Gordo’s condition: He doesn’t actually try to avoid the sight of injuries. In fact, he goes out of his way to look at them. Maybe the term we’re looking for, then, is cacospectamania, or the obsession with staring at repulsive things.

This whole episode brought back memories of an incident that I was happy to have forgotten about, however briefly. In the spring of ’22, we successfully completed the long process of systematically introducing Willy B’s group to Cy’s group and had officially formed a new group of nine. For weeks thereafter, the staff took turns sleeping overnight on a cot in the chimp house foyer due to the risk of serious conflicts in the newly formed group. While there were indeed conflicts from time to time, they were largely minor and the group eventually settled into a groove. We, in turn, began to relax our vigilance to the point where Diana and I could monitor the group via security cameras from our house across the driveway.

One evening, as Diana and I were making dinner, we heard whimpering from the monitors. There had been a conflict earlier that day, so perhaps they hadn’t finished what they started. I grabbed my radio and went to see what was going on.

Upon entering the chimp area, I could immediately sense something wasn’t right. Willy B was sitting on the bench in Room 6, where he had made his nest just a few hours earlier, his lips drawn back to expose his teeth in what is known as a fear grimace. Willy didn’t often engage with me in social interactions and rarely made direct eye contact, but at that moment his eyes were locked on mine. Help me, he appeared to be saying.

I looked up to see Gordo perched directly above Willy B in the door that passes through the ceiling into the mezzanine. Terry was positioned on the floor below him. Without a sound, the alpha male, Cy, suddenly appeared and sat in the doorway to Room 5, blocking the only other exit. Willy was alone and frightened, surrounded by three bonded males from another group after his own group mates had gone to bed. I radioed to Diana, “This is not good. You’d better get up here.”

Gordo stared intently at Willy B and began to scream. Was he marshaling his allies to launch an attack? The idea that our months-long effort to unite the two groups would fall apart so suddenly and spectacularly with a premeditated, late night ambush was not out of the realm of possibility. Chimps have been known to do worse things.

I ran through our options in my head. Diana could operate doors while I distracted the combatants with the CO2 fire extinguisher and bear scare darts we kept nearby. If we could separate even one of them, Willy might stand a chance.

Willy slowly turned his gaze from Gordo to Terry, then to Cy, and back to Gordo. He was out of options and he knew it. Gordo, meanwhile, crept closer and closer.

They are on the verge of an all out assault, I thought to myself. This is how it ends. Just then, Gordo squinted his eyes and peered intently at a small wound on Willy’s foot. His screams intensified as he studied the injury. That’s what this is all about? A cut on Willy’s foot? My emotions swung from fear and horror to disbelief. By the look on this face, so did Willy’s. Ironically, Gordo was most likely responsible for the very wound that was causing him so much distress, just as he was the one responsible for removing the toe from Willy B’s foot a couple weeks ago. This may explain why Willy is unable to muster any sympathy for Gordo’s condition.

Gordo eventually stopped screaming and the tension in the room slowly began to dissipate. Gordo, Terry, and Cy returned to their nests in the playrooms and Willy B, Diana, and I were able to breathe again, all three of us having learned an important insight about our pal, Gordo: He is not, in fact, a ruthless midnight assassin, but rather a garden variety hemophobic cacospectamaniac. It’s a slight but important difference, one that I am as grateful for today as I was then.