Missy’s legs take her on some pretty great adventures.
So they need plenty of rest.
Animal Welfare
Blankets
It’s the time of year when everyone just wants to curl up with a blanket or ten, chimps included. Earlier today, I posted this photo of Negra to our Facebook page:
This gave me the idea to go through some of our older photos and collect some of the chimps cuddling up. Negra is the biggest blanket enthusiast, but the others enjoy getting comfy too.
Negra:
Jamie:
Jody:
Missy:
Golden Grass
This morning was stunningly beautiful.
The fall grass touched with fresh dew seemed to be a source of light unto itself. With the angle of the morning sun and the glowing grass, the chimpanzees also seemed to emanate sunshine.
Annie:
Jody, as per usual, was acting as the sentry and crossing guard:
Jody was VERY excited to see Negra coming out to join the group:
Here is Jody greeting Negra. You can see her excitement in her pilo hair:
Negra climbed up to the first climbing structure, with Jody in tow:
Here they enjoyed the sights:
A little while later, Negra meandered back to the greenhouse, looking simply gorgeous against the backdrop of the golden grass:
The More the Merrier
Walking through the chimp house this afternoon, I came upon this multi-player, cross-species grooming party.
The inspiration of Negra on Giving Day for Apes
While we’re in the midst of raising funds for the expansion (and we will be for a while), we also have seven chimpanzees to care for each day. They are the top priority as well as the inspiration to push forward to be in the position to help more chimpanzees.
The “we” in the above paragraph includes everyone who supports the sanctuary. Donations provide everything from laundry soap to staff salaries to funds to expand. We’re all in this together!
Negra has been a big inspiration for supporter Monica Best over the last several years. Having the connection to the sanctuary and reading about the daily lives of the chimpanzees on the blog helped Monica battle cancer four times.
Monica loves all of the chimpanzees, but feels that Negra is a kindred spirit. She relates to Negra’s need to just get under a blanket and take a good nap:
She understands Negra’s desire to have buddies:
and also the comfort Negra finds being on her own, sitting in her cabin:
In Monica’s words, “knowing that Negra’s safe and just gets to be who she is brings me so much joy.”
Monica is the kind of donor who gives whenever there’s a call to give, so it’s no surprise that she’s pledged $10,000 for the 4-5pm PT Power Hour during today’s Giving Day for Apes.
With Monica’s generous donation, we will be in the running for the bonus $2,500 that will be given to the North American sanctuary that raises the most donations during 4-5pm PT.
Monica hopes you are ready to give during that time and encourage others to give too! She will match every donation up to $10,000, doubling your contributions!
Facial Expressions
Just like humans, chimpanzees use a wide variety of facial expressions to display their emotions. Since we often think of chimps as so similar to humans, you can see how easy it might be for newcomers to chimpanzee behavior to misinterpret some of the photos they might see out there of chimps seemingly grinning happily for the photographer. Here’s a little tour of some chimpanzee facial expressions we see on a daily basis and the meanings behind them.
A typical relaxed face, as demonstrated by Negra:
Jody has the best relaxed face, drooped lip expressions:
Here’s Burrito’s sneer face. In this case he seems to be uncomfortable with the long grass poking him in the face or the prickly vegetation underfoot:
Negra’s pout face. She often pouts when she is uneasy in a situation or she is trying to assert her dominance and take something from another chimpanzee. One way or another, she usually receives a lot of reassurance from her friends when she is pouting and whimpering:
Here are two happy chimpanzees (Missy and Annie) displaying giant play faces. Notice how their top lips cover their top teeth and their bottom teeth are exposed. This is how you smile like a chimpanzee!
Now compare those happy smiles to these full open grin fear grimaces that Annie and Jamie are showing here. I can almost hear them screaming at each other (maybe over a food disagreement?).:
Needless to say, they aren’t happy in this photo. We’ve probably all seen photos of young chimps dressed up in costumes and posing on the cover of greeting cards or in commercials with similar fearful expressions as Annie and Jamie. To learn more about how you can advocate on the behalf of these chimpanzees, follow this link and thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with others.
How’s your chimp ID?
One of the first things new chimp house volunteers start learning is how to identify each of the chimpanzees. When you’re meeting a group of chimps for the first time (or the first ten times), they can often look frustratingly similar to one another. Eventually, of course, they start to look like individuals and you wonder how you could ever have mixed them up. But there’s a definite learning curve.
It helps to be able to spend some time just staring at each chimpanzee, so I just made these videos for our volunteers, in which you can see each of the seven chimpanzees from every angle, just being themselves. I thought some of our blog followers might appreciate them also. And if you’re not interested in working on your chimp ID, the videos make seven good excuses just to look at each of these beautiful chimps for several minutes.
(For extra credit, click on each name below to learn some identifying physical characteristics for each individual).
Jody:
