Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

J.B.

Foxie’s Secret Language

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Some forms of chimp communication are universal. Chimps the world over food grunt, make play faces, and pant-hoot. While there are variations to all of these behaviors based on culture and geography, they are all part of a common chimp language.

But chimps also develop communicative behaviors all their own. My favorite example is Foxie. When Foxie adopted her first troll doll, she was extremely protective of it and became visibly upset when “Trixie,” as we named her, wound up in the hands of someone else. But over time, she began to trust us with her dolls, and at that point she actually started to use her troll dolls as a way to signify that it was time to socialize with her. While I really have no idea what is going on in Foxie’s mind, I like to think of it like this: She knows that we would never take her doll away from her, so when she hands one to us, she knows we have to stick around. You have my troll, so until I ask for it back, you’re all mine. At least that’s my guess as to how it started. Now we don’t even question it – it’s just how things work around here.

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When we come to work in the morning, Foxie passes us a troll to say hello and starts to do her playful acrobatics. And when we are locking up for the night, she often drops a troll on our heads from the loft, as a way of saying: Just five more minutes, then you can go. When she’s done with us, she asks for it back and she goes on with her day.

And it’s not just humans on the receiving end. When Foxie wants to play with Jamie, she will run up, stomp her feet, and hand a troll directly to her.

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Jamie knows that this is an invitation to a playful game of keep-away. Some of the best play bouts between Foxie and Jamie, like this one from earlier in the week, involve a troll doll (you’ll see that Jamie has it tucked into her pelvic pocket).

But sometimes Foxie goes from playful to genuinely concerned about her doll, and at that point Jamie knows to give it back immediately. No one likes to see Foxie upset.

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Who knew that a weird fad toy from the 60’s (sorry, Foxie) would become such an important part of a chimpanzee’s life?

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A Mouthful

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We served breakfast in the greenhouse this morning, but afterwards the chimps enjoyed a chow forage on the hill. As soon as we opened the door, they raced up the hill in search of treats.

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The trick to a chow forage, if you’re a chimp, is to collect the pieces in your mouth as you go so that you can gather as much as possible and enjoy them all at once.

Foxie:

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Burrito:

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Annie:

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Sometimes you have to do some delicate rearranging to make room.

Missy:

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Brute force works too…

Jamie:

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But some things will always be more important than chow.

Foxie and Dora:

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When the wind blows

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The chimps at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest have over 85,000 square feet of living space. Most of it is outdoors, on a hillside overlooking Cle Elum and the Yakima River.

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But the chimps don’t want to be outside all the time – like today, for example. It’s warm outside and the sun is shining, but the wind will almost knock you off your feet. So they have choices. Sometimes they hang out in the playroom.

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Other times they seek out some privacy in one of the four smaller “front rooms.”

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But the best spot on a day like today seems to be the greenhouse – all the sun and warmth but without the wind.

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Of course, nothing short of a hurricane could stop Jamie from her walks around the hill.

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Nature without nuture

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Burrito is a male chimpanzee.

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You may not be all that familiar with chimpanzees, but if you’ve ever known a male human being, you’ve pretty much got Burrito figured out. Because if there’s one thing us guys share above all else, it’s that we are compelled by forces beyond our control to do stupid things.

I like to think that each male chimp has a little devil on his shoulder that whispers bad advice into his ear all day long:

Hey – since everyone’s asleep right now, wouldn’t this be the perfect time to throw this barrel across the room and make a lot of noise?

Pssst…you know what really impresses girls? When you hit them on the back of the head.

I bet the caregiver will give you extra food if you spit a little of it back in her face.

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Don’t get me wrong…the little devil is not all bad. Chimpanzee society is organized into a dominance hierarchy, and you need the little devil to help you stake out your place. But the trick is to keep him under control. Over time, most male chimps learn that they can ignore him once and a while, or at least limit his influence. When they are young and they act inappropriately, they get reprimanded by their mothers or put in their place by the adults in the group. And at the same time, they learn to model their behavior after the adult males in their community so that they can harness all of that testosterone effectively. But what happens when you are raised without a mother or without any other chimpanzees at all?

When Burrito first came to the sanctuary, he seemed genuinely surprised when the girls got mad at him. He would fly around the room like a Tasmanian devil during his displays and when they began to react, he would push it even farther until they all ganged up on him. Afterwards, he would lay by himself and nurse his wounds, with a pathetic Why me? look on his face, as if he had been minding his own business when the girls just spontaneously attacked him.

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There are all sorts of subtle interactions between chimps that keep their society running smoothly. For example, when a subordinate chimp submits to a dominant chimp, the dominant chimp accepts this submission by extending a hand to be kissed, or reaching his arm around them for reciprocal grooming. But Burrito never learned how to be a chimp and these social situations seem to make him nervous, so he has developed an alternative strategy: close your eyes and pretend nothing is happening. Not surprisingly, this doesn’t work very well.

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In a way, Burrito is like a kid that never grew up, and adult behavior just doesn’t make sense to him. He knows that he wants to be dominant – that it’s his rightful place to be dominant – but he can’t quite figure out how to make it happen. So he has been stuck in limbo. Strong enough to be feared, but not wise enough to be respected.

Every once and a while, you get a little glimpse of that male chimp swagger, and you start to think that he may just figure this whole alpha thing out after all.

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But I wouldn’t hold my breath…

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Peace of Mind

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This morning, we awoke to another power outage – the fourth one this winter.

Losing power is never fun when you’re caring for chimps. In the winter, we have to set up a portable generator outside and connect it to a backup heater to keep the chimp house warm. In the summer, we risk losing hundreds of dollars worth of produce if we can’t keep our refrigerators running. And after the Taylor Bridge Fire, when we had no power for days, we were left with no lights, no laundry, no computers, and worst of all, a struggle to keep essential phones and radios charged during an emergency.

I’m happy to say that this morning was probably the last time we’ll ever have to deal with the effects a power outage. Thanks to a grant from the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS) Sanctuary Fund and a generous donation from supporters Karen and Don Young, we will soon be installing a 20-kilowatt standby generator. This generator will come on automatically within seconds anytime the power goes out and will run everything in the chimp house: heat, lights, chimp doors, refrigerators, and the electric fences.

Sometimes I wish the chimps could see all the things that people and organizations from all over the world do to help care for them. But in this case, the whole point of the gift is that they won’t ever know anything was wrong in the first place. And that means Negra won’t have to lose a single minute of sleep over it.

So our sincere thanks go out to NAVS, and to Karen and Don, for giving our staff some peace of mind, and for giving Negra some peace and quiet.

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