Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimp

Fighting and Making Up

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Fights are really common among chimpanzees. Being a caregiver you get used to the intense screaming, which often occurs even during fights with no contact between participants. You also know by the sounds when things have escalated. There was a conflict about a week ago which resulted in some minor bite wounds between Foxie and Burrito. After a brief squabble this afternoon, this pair spent a lot of time grooming each other.

The wounds were the initial focus of the grooming – chimps will closely inspect injuries on themselves and each other and clean them up by removing debris. So, grooming is good for their physical health. It’s also important for the social health of the group. The act of grooming is the chimpanzee way of healing and strengthening bonds. (For more on fighting and making up, see also J.B.’s post Conflict and Reassurance with amazing photos of a reassurance hug between Burrito and Foxie from May 4th).

Burrito
Burrito

Foxie

Foxie

 

Foxie grooming Burrito

Foxie and Burrito groom

 

Foxie groom burrito

 

sometimes grooming turns into playing – another great way to strengthen social bonds

Foxie and Burrito groom and play

Foxie hand Burrito's mouth

 

Young’s Hill & 3rd Anniversary Fundraising update

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There are still 104 posts on Young’s Hill available for “adoption.”

I know everyone who follows the blog wants to be a part of Young’s Hill and this is your chance! For just $50 you’ll get an engraved plaque with your name, a dedication or message of your choice on your fence post.

Check out the plaques so far on our 3rd Anniversary Fundraising page.

plaques (small)

We’ve been making a lot of progress on the hill habitat construction thanks to volunteers. J.B. would love to hear from you if you want to know more about volunteering. Email him: [email protected].

Here are a few photos taken by volunteers Audrey Spencer and Lynn Williamson who braved the wet and cold weather last Saturday to help make the dream of Young’s Hill a reality:

 

Audrey making sure the fence post is level (this could be your post!) while Jim and Lucas work in the background:

Audrey Jim Lucas fence posts

 

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest founder Keith holds a post steady as volunteers Lynn and Jim fill the hole:

Keith Jim Lynn fence post

 

The weather got progressively worse as the day went on. We have some dedicated volunteers! Here’s J.B. on the tractor with Keith, Lucas, Jim and Andy adding more fill to a fence post hole.

Andy Jim Lucas Keith JB fence post construction

Thanks so much to everyone who has helped with this project!

Be part of Young’s Hill!

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I’m guessing most people who are reading this are also signed up for our e-newsletter and hopefully you also follow us on Facebook, so you already know about our 3rd anniversary fundraising and your chance to be a permanent part of the Young’s Hill habitat.

For a donation of just $50, you’ll get an engraved plaque with your custom message – your name, a dedication, a favorite quote – whatever you like! It’s a unique gift idea, so you should probably think about donating for several posts.

Our goal is to have all 220 posts “adopted” by our 3rd Anniversary (and Negra’s honorary birthday) on June 13th. As I type this, we’re up to 76 posts adopted. A couple of our board members adopted a good chunk of those this morning!

So, after just two days, we’ve reached 35% of our goal.

Thanks to all who were the first to donate! If you haven’t already, get your post plaque today.

Learn more about our plans on the Young’s Hill FAQ page.

Negra thinks it would be great to reach our goal early.

Playful Negra

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We don’t know exactly how old Negra is. Our records say she was captured in Africa in 1973, other records indicate 1968. As far as we know, she was immediately placed in a biomedical research facility in the United States after her capture. She remained the property of the biomedical industry until 2008.

We celebrate Negra’s birthday on June 13th, the day the chimpanzees arrived to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. The 3rd anniversary of the chimps’ arrival and Negra’s 38th (or so) birthday is just one month away!

Regardless of her exact age, Negra is not a young chimpanzee, and it’s always a joy to see breaking out into play. She and Foxie had been playing for several minutes before I could get to the camera. When I did start filming, Jamie was banging on the fencing and didn’t seem very pleased, but she soon decided to give up on reprimanding me and instead joined in on the play.

My favorite part of the video below is Negra’s foot stomp towards Jamie. Foot stomping is a common chimpanzee play behavior, but this is one of the very few times I’ve witnessed Negra do it.

Work Party Success!

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Big thanks to Jim, Audrey, Brian, a super hardworking group from Seattle’s Northwest Animal Rights Network (NARN), and all of Saturday’s volunteers, we finished setting the poles for the primary fence yesterday!

J.B.’s secret hope is to get all of the poles in for the secondary fence next weekend, so now is the time to contact him to volunteer.

Take a look at some photos of the work yesterday:

working hard

posts being put up

Here’s one of my favorite new features of the hill – we’re calling this Missy’s tunnel:

tunnel on hill

Below is a photo of Karl, one of the NARN volunteers, testing out a firehouse swing. The chimps are going to have so much fun on the hill!

Karl swinging on hose image

Young’s Hill getting closer one pole at a time

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Last week Keith, CSNW’s founder, and volunteer Laura helped J.B. set some poles for the fence around Young’s Hill. We are building a double fence system with a total of 220 poles, so J.B.’s going to need a lot of help in the coming weeks! If you are interested in doing some physical labor volunteering now or in the future, please contact J.B. – he’d love to hear from you.

Here’s a photo of the first set of poles that went up:

first double poles

Today Denice and some terrific volunteers from Seattle University’s Animal Advocates and the Seattle Animal Defense League are setting more poles. As a big bonus to all of us, they brought vegan donuts from Mighty O in Seattle!! Mighty O donated donuts for last year’s Out of the Box auction Dessert Dash and they were recently crowned the Food Network’s Donut Champions, so this is no small treat for us humans.

Anyway, enough about delicious vegan donuts. Back to the hill. Below is a photo of today’s volunteers setting posts.

volunteers setting posts

And here’s a photo of Negra and Annie. Negra was watching the poles going up. With the two greenhouse panels off, the chimps can see all the work being done on the hill.

Negra Annie looking to Young's Hill

It’s not all about poles, either. If you received our recent e-newsletter, you know that all of the topsoil left over from digging the trench for the primary fence was utilized to make some mounds on the hill. To put these mounds in perspective, here’s a photo of J.B. and Jackie on one set (imagine them as chimps!):

JB Jackie on mounds