Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Negra, enjoying the morning sun:
Foxie and one of her many legless dolls:
Burrito, exhibiting his “come and chase me outside” look:
Foxie and her salt-and-pepper arm hair:
Jamie, scanning the hill for leftover forage:
Jody, pant-hooting and pant-grunting upon Burrito’s entry into the greenhouse:
Many people have asked how the chimps cope with all of the construction going on around their home. Let’s take a look!
Find someone that looks at you the way Annie looks at Missy. But make sure you have separate hobbies or something like that because, to be honest, Annie can be a bit clingy at times.
Seriously, Annie is a completely different person than she was when she first arrived over 14 years ago. She’s far more confident and secure. And I would attribute that in large part to the thousands upon thousands of hours she has spent grooming with her best friend Missy.
Sometimes the forages on Young’s Hill contain a few extra special treats – something even better than the oranges and primate chow you are currently enjoying.
If you, like Missy here, are lucky enough spot such a treat – a coconut, for example – your work has only begun. Because retrieving the prize may require a daring mission.
You must be stealthy. Drawing attention to the presence of such a treat will only invite competition.
Get in, get out, and no one will be the wiser.
Now, look around. Did anyone see you or the coconut?
Is the coast clear?
Good. Time to grab the loot and escape unnoticed.
Carefully.
Gracefully.
Like a jewel thief.
There is no coconut and you were never there.
Whoopsie daisy…
At least she stuck the landing. And kept the coconut!
Jamie, on the other hand, has no need to fear her coconut being stolen and thus can avoid the indignity of falling off a tightrope.
Negra is a strictly terrestrial mammal regardless of the situation but managed to find some goodies nonetheless.
Jody also enjoyed the forage.
As did Foxie.
Annie found some primate chow placed atop the termite mound. But I think what she really wanted was some of that coconut.
Perhaps Missy found it in her heart to share?
Since she was integrated into a larger group, Honey B has been making new friends, reuniting with old ones, and spending time with her half-sisters. Here she grooms with half sister, Rayne, and her old friend, Terry. Or rather, here she is being groomed. Honey B doesn’t do much grooming herself. Without knowing more you might think of that as an indication of dominance, but instead it seems to be more of a quirk. At least one study suggests that chimps with significant human interaction at a young age exhibit deficits in grooming behavior as adults, even when they are integrated into a group and engage in other social behaviors like playing. As far as I’m aware, Honey B didn’t have significantly more human interaction when she was young compared to the others in her group, but you would swear she was raised as a pet or performer if you didn’t know better. Perhaps some chimps are just more susceptible to the effects of human rearing.
In any case, it’s moments like this that make the integration process worth it.
More of your questions answered! (see Part I here and an additional answer here)
How do you administer their medications?
The chimps take a number of different medications for both acute and chronic conditions. Most medications are mixed with smoothie, juice, or Gatorade and served to the chimps in a cup through the mesh. This is the easiest way to make sure each chimp gets the correct medication and to ensure that they took the entire dose. Each morning, the person serving as 2nd Staff is responsible for preparing medications in labeled cups, which they then set on trays to be served along with their meals.
Some of these medications are nearly tasteless while others have a bitter or metallic flavor that cannot be covered up by any amount of juice, in which case we will try things like yogurt or honey. For some drugs, we’ve learned the only way to get the chimps to take them is to have them microencapsulated at a specialized compounding pharmacy. This is a process in which the medication is prepared in tiny particles which are then covered in a tasteless coating – imagine a bunch of Advil tablets but 1/500th the size. The microencapsulated drug can then be mixed into a yogurt or other food without throwing off the taste. It’s expensive but worth every penny when a sick chimp is reluctant to take their meds.
The chimps all differ in how easily they will take medications. For Negra, we go straight for the pineapple coconut juice – she generally won’t take meds in anything else. Gordo is similarly stubborn. He will even spit all of the liquid out onto the floor or a piece of cardboard, sift out any undissolved medication, and slurp it back up. And if he senses too much undissolved medication, he will spit it right back in your face.
Most of the chimps allow us to hold the cup and pour the juice or smoothie into their mouths, but some insist on holding the cup themselves. Burrito is one who must hold his own cup and when he’s done, he delights in letting it drop and even throwing it down to the ground. Others, like Honey B, politely wait for us to come back and take it from them so as not to cause a fuss. One time I got sidetracked after giving Cy his cup and when I returned a couple minutes later, he was still holding it up and waiting for me to collect it.
Some medications are given topically, as in the case of antiseptics for wounds or even lotions or salves for dry, cracked skin. For these, we encourage the chimps to cooperate through positive reinforcement training.
The most difficult time to give medications is in the days following a procedure, when the chimps are still recovering from anesthesia. Unfortunately, this is often the most critical time to give drugs like analgesics and antibiotics. We make sure to give long-acting injectable drugs while they are still in the clinic, but eventually we have to beg and plead for them to take them orally. We will try anything. Some of you may remember Burrito’s late night medication-stuffed bagels. There is no better sense of accomplishment than when a sick chimpanzee finally takes the medication they need to recover.
Are the chimps on any type of birth control?
Yes, all of the females that regularly cycle, with the exception of Annie, are given hormonal birth control each morning. One reason to give birth control is, as you might have guessed, to prevent pregnancy – we are doing this for the females in the newly integrated group until we can see who copulates and/or confirm that the males are still sterile from the vasectomies they were given years ago. So far it’s still just Terry and Dora copulating on occasion, but you can’t be too careful. But there are other medical reasons to administer birth control hormones. Jamie, for example, was put on birth control to suppress the normal anogenital swelling associated with her cycle, which we worried might increase the pain and discomfort of her anal fistulas. Jody was placed on birth control due to a uterine fibroid and abnormal menstrual bleeding.
Of course, birth control isn’t the only medication we administer on a daily basis. Some chimps, like Burrito and Cy, take medications to manage their heart disease. Others, like Foxie and Negra, take medications to manage pain associated with arthritis. Just like us, the list of medications grows longer as they grow older. This morning, Anna prepared 29 different medications and supplements for our 16 chimpanzees – and that was just the a.m. dose!
Nothing can distract chimpanzees from eating their breakfast – except, of course, for drama from the group of chimpanzees next door.
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to pose questions on our Ask Us Anything blog post. Based on the video above, I thought I could begin by answering a question posed by Kathleen:
Have you seen any changes within The Seven now that new chimpanzees are living “in their home”. Have any shown signs of stress or anxiety over the commotions and basic existence of chimpanzees living next door? Do any over groom, or are any obsessively curious over the new neighbors? Things like that.
If there is anxiety or stressors, did it/does it lead to any new conflicts/squabbles within the group?
To be perfectly honest, I think there are both benefits and drawbacks to having multiple groups of chimpanzees living near one another.
The main drawback is that chimpanzees exhibit a significant amount of emotional contagion, particularly during high-arousal situations. So yes, there are occasions where a conflict on one side of the chimp house leads to a conflict on the other side, for no other reason than the chimps get worked up listening to the screaming and end up scuffling with each other. That’s not to say that these squabbles aren’t based on some preexisting grudge, but the proximate cause seems, at least from our perspective, to be the behavior of the chimps in the other group.
These “spillover” conflicts are pretty rare, however, and the mere existence of another group nearby doesn’t appear to cause any chronic stress or tension. Generally, I’d say having another group nearby is a benefit. For one thing, all social primates seem to be drawn to drama. And all the better if that drama is happening on TV, in a magazine, or among the folks next door where it won’t impact us personally. The Cle Elum Seven chimps are riveted by the arguments taking place across the way and will stop whatever they are doing to watch The Real Housewives of Phase 2, as you can see in the video. In a way, it can actually improve group cohesion – after all, nothing makes an ingroup like an outgroup! What else could possibly make Jamie and Burrito feel like they are on the same team?
But it’s not just drama that they are interested in. The girls often swoon when Willy B is within view, and Burrito spends a lot of time trying to get his neighbors’ attention at the window. Chimpanzees are social animals and though the two groups can’t live together at this time, they often benefit from interacting at a distance. It makes their otherwise small world just a bit larger.
