Some recent photos of Burrito, our resident male model:
chimp
Part joy. Part magic. All Foxie.
Last week you may recall that I captured Foxie snuggled up napping on the heated floor with her dolls, Kate and Alana (Dora’s friends 🙂 ). I also promised there were A WHOLE LOT of photos of that scene to follow. So here goes…
When Foxie plays she often likes to lie on her back in a tiny chimpanzee ball repeatedly tucking her arms and legs into herself and then kicking and flailing them about as she snorts and laughs. On this day, after she woke up she rolled over and decided to engage her dolls in her play session (JB wrote a fantastic blog post on Friday about chimps and imaginary play). What ensued was part joy, part magic, and all Foxie:
Tea & Play
Today’s enrichment theme was “tea party” so we took that literally and made two types of tea for the chimps to enjoy after we had finished cleaning their castle.
Post-tea time was spent on important things like diving into the nesting position, staring at a troll doll, and some lazy play with friends. Watch the video with sound.
Who can resist being thoroughly charmed by these chimpanzees?
A Missy in Motion…
Today was a great day!
Way back in the spring, Charlie Nickerson of Troop 80 in Seattle contacted J.B. about doing his eagle scout project to help the sanctuary. We’re not able to say yes to all requests we get from people interested in doing volunteer projects like this, but we had just had a bunch of fire hose donated, so J.B. got Charlie started on the idea of making some fire hose hammocks to add to the interest of Young’s Hill.
A whole group of people joined in the hanging of the two awesome new hammocks, including other members of Troop 80, Shawn (J.B.’s new right-hand maintenance volunteer), John, and two CWU students – Ruth and Kyle.
It was pouring when they arrived this morning, so the chimps didn’t mind not having access to their outdoor habitat. The team worked outside in the wet weather with J.B. while volunteer Rachel and I cleaned up the chimp house.
In addition to the two new hammocks, the group also hung fire hose in various areas on the hill, connecting structures to each other.
Luckily, by the time they were finished with all of this manual labor, the weather had cleared up. So, the hardworking team spread a forage on the hill for the chimps and watched all seven chimpanzees forage for their lunch and explore the new features of their habitat.
I took what seemed like hundreds of photos of the chimps enjoying these new features and foraging, and I’ve narrowed down a couple of series to share in this blog post.
You probably know that we celebrate Jamie’s birthday on Halloween, which is just a few days away, but Missy might have thought all the new fire hose was a present just for her.
I am calling the below series of photos: “A Missy in Motion Tends to be the Best Thing Ever.”
Here is Missy standing next to Annie. Take a moment to admire Missy’s thigh muscles:
In her element, Missy tightrope walking and otherwise using existing and newly hung fire hose to traverse all over the hill:
Later in the day, Missy discovered some food cleverly hidden in new fire hose wrapped around a log post:
Every once in a while, she would stop to rest:
But not for long! Here she is climbing into one of the new hammocks:
I’d say it’s a hit:
This next series of Jamie I am calling, “Perfect Dismount”
A very cleverly hung piece of hose that Jamie couldn’t resist trying out:
Annie may have found her new favorite hangout:
Burrito explored a new hammock by himself later in the day:
And then he peeked at us from the lookout:
Thanks to everyone who helped make the day a great one, including all of you reading and sharing this – your support makes every day great!
It Doesn’t Take Much
We give the chimpanzees all kinds of toys to play with each day, but sometimes something as simple as a cardboard box does the trick.
Rainy Memories
You have probably heard about, or maybe you are experiencing, the dramatic storm that is hitting the Pacific Northwest today.
The majestic Cascade Mountain Range protects Cle Elum from a lot of the wetter weather that our friends to the west in the Seattle area receive, and we are certainly not getting the extreme rain and wind that is expected closer to the coast. Nevertheless, it rained ALL day today, and it’s still coming down.
This is what the chimpanzees were up to today (similar to many of you, I suspect):
Jamie watching the rain from the greenhouse:
Don’t worry – Jamie managed to get a walk in before it really started to come down.
Annie nesting in the front rooms:
Yesterday, Margaret, a friend and supporter who has known the chimpanzees since their arrival, reminded me of the first time the chimpanzees experienced a real rainstorm at the sanctuary. Margaret was volunteering that day. It was almost exactly eight years ago.
I wrote about the chimpanzees’ experience and posted photos in the blog post Rainstorm Bravery. This was three years before Young’s Hill was complete and before the greenhouse panels were on, so the rain came down right into what is now the greenhouse.
Imagine your very first experience being able to go out into a rainstorm (or just watch from the safety and comfort of your bed). Though they were in their 20s and 30s, everything in their sanctuary life was just so new to the chimpanzees.
Today, the rain doesn’t faze them too much, but when we get thunderstorms or other out-of-the-ordinary weather, they do still react. One of my favorite experiences at the chimp house was watching Burrito do a “rain dance” in 2013.
In honor of the power of weather, the connection that we have to our environment, and the inner chimpanzee in all of us, I’ve reposted the video below.
I hope everyone is staying safe and warm as you wait out the storm.
Autonomy and Confidence
Last month I wrote about “missing chimpanzee” Foxie, who has been doing a lot of solo exploring on the hill this summer. In May, Anna shared that Negra had been venturing out further on Young’s Hill than she had ever been before.
Well, we can add Burrito to this growing list of chimpanzees who have suddenly become more confident in the outdoor habitat.
As I was finishing up a walk with Jamie this afternoon, I came around to the front of the building and noticed the figure of a chimpanzee way up on the towers at the top of the hill. To my surprise, it was Burrito who was up there, walking across the shaky bridge, all by himself. I should mention that there was no food forage involved, so his motivation wasn’t tied to finding a snack.
I rushed up to the observation deck and got a few photos as he climbed down from the lookout and slowly walked back toward the greenhouse:
As I took these photos, I was grinning like a fool, and I called down to Burrito to tell him how great I think he is.
Like humans, chimpanzees experience varying degrees of anxiety and fear. In some ways, Burrito shows more anxiety than some of the other chimpanzees. It took him a long time to get comfortable in the greenhouse when it was first completed in 2010, even when the ladies were spending the majority of their time out there (read this blog post from Elizabeth from March 2010 and watch the video of Burrito finally making a breakthrough and spending some time in the greenhouse).
And now, this summer, five years after the chimpanzees were given the 2-acre outdoor habitat that we call Young’s Hill, they are still continuing to gradually embrace and explore their autonomy.
I wonder what they will be doing five years from now.
