Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Sabrina

Cy & Terry on Duty

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It was a busy day in the chimp house today and our new maintenance worker, Jake, was installing steps on a slope to make our perimeter checks a little less hazardous. You see…some of us are accident prone and tend to fall in the mud and snow a lot (*ahem* Jenna). In the afternoon JB had to go into town to run some of his own errands so Cy and Terry took over supervising Jake until dinner time. I was only able to capture some photos of them coming back from their work day to get a well earned meal, and then captured video of Cy unwinding from his long work day with a little YouTube time.

 

Cy returning from a long afternoon managing the employees

Terry had a busy day as Assistant to the Supervising Manager

 

 

Bonus photos of Terry enjoying a nice paper wadge to start his day off right!

Chimp Lesson #8: Take Some Time for Yourself

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Continuing the series of lessons the chimps have taught us, today we have Dora to thank for teaching us to take some time for ourselves even when our days are busy, don’t skip the self care. Whether it be a vacation, yoga class or building a fine nest for a nap on a chilly day, make sure you take some time for yourself.

 

We also would like to thank all our supporters for the magazine donations made throughout the year! The response to our request for magazines has been amazing but Cy has a lot of gossip, travel and food magazines to get through right now, so we would like to put our magazine donation request on hold until he has time to catch up. We will be sure to let you all know when he has caught up on all his reading material and is ready to receive more.

Honey B vs Target

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Last time I wrote about Honey B, her and I were just beginning to get to know each other with short grooming sessions and casual interest on her part but now we have moved up to actual play for prolonged periods. To describe my first game of chase with Honey, it was like when you’re a kid and you’re playing outside with a new friend and then you realize the sun is going down, the street lights are coming on, and you need to go home but all you want is to continue playing with your friend. That’s not to say she is not still the ultimate agent of chaos…today’s video is evidence of that. Ms. B is left alone briefly with a plastic target which we hang on the mesh to get a chimp to stay stationary in one spot, usually during mealtime, and within a couple minutes she manages to unscrew the hook and take off with it. She is nice enough to come show us what she has and then, once she loses interest, she just drops it outside of the caging for us to collect.

 

 

It’s Complicated

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Mave and Gordo have a complicated relationship that usually involves Mave pressuring Gordo to give up his produce items during meal times. Gordo has figured out how to barter with Mave by giving her a piece of an item to appease her and she usually will go away for a time after receiving tribute. However, the more positive side of their relationship is harder to get a glimpse of and usually when we do see it it is very short lived. Well today was our lucky day and we were able to capture a fairly long play session between these two, with Dora supervising or course!

Lessons the Chimps Have Taught Us

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Today the Saturday crew of caregivers here at CSNW were pondering all the things we’ve learned from chimpanzees throughout our careers. So here are the first few things we came up with, this is not at all a complete list as this will be an ongoing project but I hope you enjoy the photographic journey of life lessons taught to us by the chimps we’ve cared for.

1. The chimps are always right.

 

2. Enjoy the small things, never pass up an opportunity to play!

 

3. Life is short, so don’t take yourself too seriously

 

4. Stay vigilant – almost anything can become a weapon

 

5. Always, ALWAYS keep the chimps occupied. If you don’t have activities to keep them occupied then they might find their own projects to work on, like lock picking and bridge destruction.

 

6. Stay Humble.

Rayne: The Coolest Girl at School

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The best part of the mornings for me is serving the chimps their meals. I like to hear their excitement when food shows up; they tend to look over the food items that will be offered then they settle into their chosen spot to enjoy their meal. Gordo usually enjoys his meals out in the greenhouse, Lucky will sit up higher on top of the food chute, possibly to avoid the melee that can happen during meal time but for Rayne that spot is usually on a thin piece of firehose that is hung across the room. She has managed to master sitting cross legged on this thin hose for her entire meal and she seems, somehow, to be comfortable and content here. Watching Rayne stroll in casually each morning and take her spot for breakfast is definitely one of my favorite parts of the day.