Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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The Jody Olympics

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Jody is not the most athletic of chimpanzees. During her first years at the sanctuary she wasn’t always interested in traversing the great outdoors unless it was to forage for wild greens to bring back to her nest and she typically preferred to spend her days lounging with abandon, taking it easy. When she did decide to ramp up her activity a bit, our hearts swelled watching her endearing, but awkward attempts at climbing, running, and even brachiating. All run of the mill stuff for chimpanzees. But understandably, after decades spent in a space the size of a bathroom stall, she needed time to rest, recover and heal before the rebuilding could begin.

With the exception of Negra, Jody is also the most cold aversive of the group, so when she ran outside into the lower 20 degree morning today, clearly with her own agenda to explore every place she possibly could, it made my heart sing. While she still may not be the most agile or sure-footed of chimps, her adventurous and courageous spirit more than make up for it and she continues to grow stronger and more confident every day.

There isn’t much snow left on the ground, but with the temperatures staying below freezing what snow there is has pretty much turned to ice. But even that didn’t deter Jody this morning. Not to be outshone by resident athlete, Missy, Jody seemed to have decided to run her own Olympics course, in classic Jo Jo style.

Heading up the icy hill, she opted to utilize the firehose to hang onto as she bravely ventured onto the tundra:

Back down the hill she stopped to see if she could chip off an ice snack:

Her hair is pilo-erect (hair standing on end) due to both the cold and her excitement (notice that happy droopy lip!):

Nice lunge, Jo!

From here she quickly made her way up to the climbing structures to cross the swinging bridges:

I think this was my favorite moment! The structures were covered in ice and as she cautiously made her way across, she started to slide backward here, but she didn’t give up:

She made it! Looking pretty pleased with herself, as she should be:

No time to waste, she cautiously headed back across:

Here is a glimpse of Jody’s self-appointed coach/spotter/stalker, Burrito, who bravely, but reluctantly, followed her into the freezing temps every step of the way:

Making her way back down the hill toward the greenhouse Jody found a huge chunk of ice. A gold medal by her standards:

The Healing Touch

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Even though the chimpanzees always live together as one group, Negra chooses to spend a lot of her time alone – often curled up in a big comfortable nest with a blanket over her head. She has a favorite spot on the catwalk of the playroom by the windows where she can lay in her nest and still keep an eye on things but remain out of the fray.

When she’s not in her nest, we frequently find her near her mound of blankets, looking out of the window. I see Negra gazing out of the windows in a way that I rarely witness the other chimpanzees doing.

She can spend long periods of time taking in the view that includes the cattle and horses on the neighboring property, the old highway, and the railroad. Negra exudes serenity in these quiet, private moments.

 

Even us introverts benefit from the company of others, though. Sometimes it helps to have a friend insist that you spend time with them. Missy in particular makes sure that Negra remains part of the social fabric. Missy is the self-appointed doctor of the group, examining every body part and tending to wounds. You might say that Missy has a healing touch.

 

After years of forced-isolation, the opportunity for Negra to develop long-lasting and trusting relationships with the other chimpanzees is one of the greatest gifts that this sanctuary has given.

 

The Beauty of Grey

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As you probably know, we have an enrichment calendar that guides the volunteer or staff member who is putting together enrichment for the following day for the chimpanzees. It provides some sort of theme for the day, like “art day” or “troll scarves.” Sometimes it’s just a color, which causes us to dig through the enrichment bins and perhaps unearth that blue or red or green toy that hasn’t surfaced in a while.

I was laughing yesterday about the theme for today’s enrichment: Grey Day.

It is entirely appropriate, being that the outside world is on the grey spectrum today. Right before I opened the door to the hill to let the chimpanzees decide whether or not to venture out into the overcast day or stay inside, a bald eagle flew overhead. I was marveling at how majestic he was, gliding through the sky, unmistakable from other birds with his starkly contrasting white head with black wings.

This led me to wonder if perhaps I was thinking about Grey Day in an entirely unfair light (so to speak). Grey is beautiful. To prove it, just look at these black and white photos of the chimpanzees. Removing the distraction of color can be a special thing. With the photos of the chimps, I just want to study them a little bit longer, and I notice features that maybe I would overlook in the same photo saturated with color.

So, today, we embrace the grey.

 

Jamie:

 

Jody:

 

Missy:

Among the sun spots

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Despite snow and storms being predicted these last couple of days, we woke to a sunny, but frosty cold day. And ALL the primates have been soaking in the light:

Jamie surveying her frozen Queendom:

She climbed around licking all the melting frost off the structures:

And just hiding out for a bit of privacy while her staff wait patiently in the wings:

Foxie among the sunspots in the greenhouse:

Beautiful Missy in a rare moment of tolerating the camera:

Annie wasn’t up for eating cold snow and decided to sit in the sun and wadge paper from her chow bag instead:

Even, unbelievably, the Queen made a run OUTSIDE for a snow snack:

Foxie grimacing from the cold on her way back to the greenhouse. In her rush to get back she dropped three of her dolls outside, but several minutes later she scurried back out to collect them and take them to warm up in the chimp house:

Cold winds couldn’t stop the boss from her duties, who figures we can always run to stay warm:

A whirlwind of years

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Today is about time flying by and some of the great random moments in the lives of the chimpanzees over the last ten years.

I’ve started and stopped this blog so many times today that I lost count.

 

There were toys to clean:

 

Laundry to do:

 

Amazing interns to train:

 

Paper braids for evening enrichment to be made (most of which were made by the aforementioned amazing interns):

 

 

And of course walks to take. Jamie was in the running mood today, so this quick snapshot was the only halfway decent photo I was able to get on one of our day walks:

 

Plus a whole host of other daily activities.

 

And then more walks after dinner! (well after I thought I would have this blog posted).

Courtesy of the unseasonably mild weather and the lengthening days, Jamie did three more walks after her evening meal, with Missy joining her for two of them.

 

This year’s HOOT! gala on May 19th will celebrate ten years of the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees living the sanctuary life. TEN YEARS!

We are in the process of a website redesign right now. I’m really excited about a whole new look that highlights the great photos of the chimpanzees and hopefully makes it easy for people to be drawn in and fall in love with them. Here’s a sneak peek:

When the designers were starting to move the data over from the existing site into the new design, they ran into a snag because of the amount of content that we had in the blog. Ten years worth of photos, videos, and stories, it seems, takes up quite a bit of space.

I love that we have this diary of the chimpanzees’ days and the moments that were funny, poignant, and sometimes even mundane.

I remember being a kid and thinking that a week, or even a day (an hour?), was an excruciatingly long time to wait for something. I remember adults saying, “don’t complain – when you get older, time will fly by.”

Never were truer words uttered.

Lately, I feel like I’m in a movie montage – days pass by in seconds, and years are contained in just a minute’s worth of highlights. But then there’s this blog with all of these posts that mark real moments in time over the last several years. Moments that the chimpanzees were living to the fullest. Days that were spent with companionship, favorite foods, boots, trolls, blankets. Years that marked new additions to their home. Almost a decade of exploration into this new life they were given.

 

Here’s a look back on the last ten years of blog posts for January 20th (or thereabouts – we didn’t always post to the blog every single day – can you imagine!)

 

January 21, 2008:

not-so-shy Foxie

 

January 19, 2009:

Trolls: Not just for Foxie!

 

January 19, 2010:

Annie Upside Down

 

 

January 20, 2011:

Greenhouse play

 

January 21, 2012:

the snow days continue

 

January 20, 2013:

Floppy ears

 

January 20, 2014:

There’s something about Burrito

 

January 21, 2015:

Always a reason to play

 

January 20, 2016:

20 snapshots of the day

 

January 20, 2017:

Tool Use

 

And that bring us to today. Happy January 20th to everyone. Thank you for following along!

 

Trying new things

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The other day, after the PRT session that Elizabeth filmed, Jamie and I followed a typical post-PRT routine. Because I had spent the last fifteen minutes requesting that she do things, it was her turn to request that I do something (I’m pretty sure that Jamie believes it is ALWAYS time for the humans to do something for her, but I digress). So I put on her latest favorite pair of boots, we did a perimeter walk, and afterward we settled in for a grooming session in the greenhouse.

Jamie is easily the most dexterous chimpanzee I’ve ever known, and she’s a master at using tools. Her fine-motor ability is really quite impressive. Just watch this video of Jamie giving J.B. a “manicure” and read this story about her tool-altering skills and forethought.

It was just Jamie in the greenhouse, grooming my fingers and the boots, when Annie came over with a tool of her own.

 

For the first several years of Annie’s sanctuary life, she didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the humans – not because she wasn’t interested in us, but, I think, because she was a ball of anxiety, and she didn’t want to over-step her place in the social world of chimpanzees and humans. We have written many times on the blog about Annie’s ever-growing confidence in the last few years (for example, this touching post from Elizabeth).

 

We’ve witnessed all of the chimpanzees trying new things over the last nine+ years at the sanctuary. We’ve gotten to know them so well that when they do something new, it stands out. You may already be familiar with “Fake Neggie” – a nickname for Missy when she is adopting Negra’s quintessential blanket-over-head nesting style.

 

You may not know that there was a time a few years ago when Negra decided troll dolls were her thing too, carrying one with her from bed to meals to adventures on Young’s Hill.

It lasted for a few weeks, then the fad seemed to pass for Negra and she’s been mostly troll-less ever since, leaving the doll obsession to Foxie.

 

Jody is sometimes seen with troll dolls, and Annie tries them out once in a while too.

 

Imitation is an important part of observing and learning. J.B. wrote a blog post back in 2012 about how copying the behavior of others shouldn’t be dismissed as somehow intellectually unimpressive. It’s worth the read.

 

When Annie confidently walked towards me with her rather blunt tool and pushed it out through the caging to groom the boot I was wearing, my smile could not have been any bigger. She was clumsy and awkward with the over-sized tool she had chosen, but she gave it a go, even with boss Jamie sitting right there to watch.

 

Annie didn’t stay long, and I don’t think she had any kind of magical insight about why Jamie spends so much time engaging in this behavior.

 

To have an interesting and full life and to get a better idea of who you are, you have to try new things – even things you aren’t sure you will be good at doing. Annie seems to know this now. She’s 100% signed up for this sanctuary life, and I have no doubt she and her chimpanzee companions will continue to try new things, figuring out more about themselves and delighting and surprising us along the way.