Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.

caregiving

Trending Upward

by

I must admit that I got quite sentimental in my latest blog post. I even tried to be insightful.

Today’s entry will contain nothing of the sort.

Instead, here is a dry update on everyone’s progress accompanied by images from my phone camera.

Burrito continues to heal and appears more active by the day, but he is still nursing some ugly wounds. We continue to monitor him for potential complications (including but not limited to bacterial infection). Getting him to take meds is a full-time job, so caregiver Katelyn had the tedious task of preparing various foods and trying to sell him on each. As J.B. recently explained, this has been the most challenging aspect of Burrito’s treatment plan. He did get a few bursts of energy today and spent quite a bit of time interacting with the female chimps through the mesh windows separating him from the Playroom. He even climbed up onto his favorite bench, although his movement was a bit shaky and he appears to only have a fraction of his normal strength. Still, it was good to see Bubba being Bubba.

Burrito licks his wounds while reclining in his nest.
Burrito ventures down to the farthest bench so he can see into the Greenhouse.
Burrito enjoys some medication-laced yogurt, even licking it off of the caging.
Our medication board is quite full at the moment.
Burrito presents his injured hand to the females.
Burrito relaxes atop the highest bench in the front rooms.

The girls (Annie, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy and Negra) have been back to business as usual. They seem to appreciate a return to routine, although they spend a lot of time monitoring Burrito and watching the windows and doors for signs of their chimpanzee neighbors on the other side. Whenever Willy B makes an appearance, they shower him with submissive pant-grunts and excited gestures. The weather was chilly and windy today, minimizing the appeal of Young’s Hill, but Jamie recruited volunteer Chad to walk the boundary with her anyway. When not patrolling and policing, Jamie has been enviously watching us give all sorts of foods to Burrito and has been asking for similar treatment. Jody has been obsessively helping Burrito to groom his wounds and he seems glad to have such an attentive nurse.

Jody grooms Burrito’s hand.
Jamie chills out on a firehose “vine” after breakfast.

Honey B has been an absolute star when asked to present her wounds for inspection and treatment. Her toe and backside are healing well and she is behaving like her normal self. She’s been more interested in grooming my freckles than she has been in her own injuries, so our concern for her recovery is minimal even though we continue to treat her lacerations with topical and oral medication. Honey B is an ideal patient because she is comfortable with our presence close to the steel caging and she is generally accepting of any flavor of yogurt, even if it tastes like antibiotics or Ibuprofen. As long as she gets to hold the spoon and hang out with caregivers, she’s happy.

Honey B inspects the camera lens on my phone. She really doesn’t seem to mind having humans operating within her personal space.

Willy B and Mave have been dealing with the unfortunate loss of their new social partners now that the groups have been split up and integration efforts have been halted. Instead, they’ve been focusing on reinforcing their bonds with each other (and with Honey B, to a lesser extent). We’ve also been showering them with enrichment and allowing them to sunbathe in the outdoor chute during the afternoons.

Willy B (left) and Mave (right) engage in some rough play before dinner.
Willy B used my phone camera to inspect his teeth…
…and groom his nails…
…and fix his hair.

Overall, everyone is trending upward. However, we continue to place an emphasis on helping Burrito to recover while keeping the other chimps busy and comfortable as the fall weather gradually fades into winter.

The river meanders its way past the sanctuary this afternoon.

A Day to Give

by

I thought since today was Giving Day for Apes I would reflect on this amazing opportunity that I get to call my job. I am a caregiver for primates and a handful of farm animals. Chimpanzee have changed my life. The Chimpanzee Human Communication Institute was my first introduction to chimpanzees. To be honest, I always wanted to work with marine mammals, but after I met Tatu, Loulis, and Dar I fell in love with chimps intelligence, their playfulness, their physical strength, but most importantly their resiliency. When I learned about the pain humans have inflicted on primates I wanted to make a difference and from then on I never looked back. I followed Tatu and Loulis to Canada and than I came back to Washington where I was lucky enough to get a job at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. It was hard to leave Tatu and Lou who I had known for 7 years, but the Pacific Northwest was my home. And to be lucky enough to get a job at CSNW, you just can’t say no to that!

There is a lot to the word caregiver. Being a caregiver is one of the most valuable parts of my life. I have learned how to put all of their needs before my own, feel so much compassion it hurts, and have a side of me be so silly I don’t care who sees. But there is also the side of being responsible for the well being of the individuals you are caring for and the humans involved. It can be emotionally straining, especially at a time like now. Care giving during this introduction period has been a challenge, the most amazing rewarding challenge! On one hand the friendships being formed are the whole reason we are doing this and it is so awesome you could cry! We want the best for the chimps and we also want to provide more homes to more chimps. But on the other hand it is one of the more stressful events in my career. On the human side watching your friends meet a bunch of strangers! Talk about social anxiety! But, as written in many of our blogs, you have to trust them. Each chimp has stepped up and gone above and beyond what we thought would happen. The hard work isn’t over, it might not have even started yet, but it is truly an amazing time to be at CSNW.

The chimps, as I’ve mentioned, are so resilient. Every chimp has a different background, some were raised by humans and given to biomedical research once they were too old to control, others where caught in the wild and taken away from their mothers, many were breed in captivity never knowing what the outside world felt like and would never know what it would feel like to be a “real” chimp, a wild chimp. Theses are just a few scenarios and there are so many more. But the fact that these chimps can form relationships with humans after what people have put them through will always blow my mind. And more than that, when they get the chance in sanctuary to make relationships with other chimps, get that feeling of freedom or choice, or even just feel relaxed. That is were my job is the most rewarding. Here in a sanctuary they get the opportunity to become themselves, or at least as much as possible. They will never get to go into the wild again, that was taken from them, but that they can make friends with other chimps or people and go onto the 2 acres must feel freeing in some way.

A few little moments that make my heart melt that I hope makes yours too: Annie making sweet bird noises, Burrito food squeaking so loud, Willy B lip smacking for food, Mave being a friend to all and her jumping up and clapping her feet when she wants to play (eekk!). Negra going out on the Hill alone, Jamie making a fort laying on a nest intertwined with boots and books, Honey B laying in a bunch of brown paper wrestling around in it, the moment you hand Foxie her doll back and she is completely content. Missy, Honey B, & Annie playing and Jody caring so intensely about each of her friends. But the winner today is Missy and Willy B playing chase. I haven’t seen Willy B with this big of a play face yet! We hope you enjoy this short video!

 

Who’s in charge?

by

One of the first things you realize when you begin working with chimps is that you are not in charge. We humans may have larger brains, but believe me, the chimps are just not that impressed.

web Jamie outside close up serious sheet over shoulders_MG_5804

On a good day, they graciously allow us into their world as friends or playmates. On a bad day, we are unwilling participants (usually the victim) in their constantly unfolding social dramas. But most of the time we are merely spectators, forced to watch impotently from the sidelines.

Fights are a good example of this. If you’ve worked with chimps for a while, you can forget what it was like to witness your first fight – the piercing screams, bodies leaping and rolling and flailing across the enclosure, the huge canine teeth bared for all to see. The first time you see it, you wonder if anyone will come out alive. But after a while, you get used to it, and you start to differentiate between regular squabbles and the more serious fights based on the tenor of the screams alone. You get so immune to it, in fact, that during minor fights you don’t even bother looking up from your computer until you notice a new volunteer breaking out in tears and wondering how a group of people so heartless and unsympathetic could have ever been placed in charge of a sanctuary.

web_Negra_fear_grimace_take_pinata_from_jody_GH_jb_IMG_3615

The thing is, even if we wanted to intervene in a fight, there’s not a whole lot we could do. When chimps are fighting, they are intensely focused on the task at hand. When the potential for a life-threatening fight is high, as the case may be during social introductions, caregivers might try to break up a fight by spraying the chimps with a hose or firing a CO2 extinguisher into the air with the hope that the noise will distract them just long enough to get them separated. But most of the time, all we can do is stand by and assess the damage.

We often joke that it’s the chimps that run the sanctuary, not us, but there’s more than a bit of truth to that idea. Within these walls, we have no choice sometimes but to play by their rules.