I could listen to the crunching sounds of lunch all day!
chimpanzee retirement
Let’s taco about Tuesday
Tuesday has been a normal day consisting of cleaning, preparing meals and enrichment, a one-on-one introduction, and also about getting ready for Thanksgiving day. As usual the chimps will get an entire feast just for them with their favorite food items and Fall themed enrichment. On the other hand, the humans will be getting together for an early thanksgiving pot luck tomorrow night. This will consist of homemade traditional Thanksgiving meals, or what we each consider to be traditional. In my case, I’ll bring a vegan sweet potato and marshmallow casserole and although it is not a dish commonly made back home in Puerto Rico on this occasion, I like it so much that I would always require my family to make it just for me. I’ve been told that caregiver Chad makes a mean Nasi Goreng fried rice that is very famous in the chimp house so there is a lot to look forward to.
Enough about food, let’s taco about today’s introductions. I know we have said it before, but even though we plan ahead for possible introduction pairings, the chimps get the final say and that is exactly what happened today. Honey B and Willy B conspired together to not allow us to access the Mezzanine for cleaning, which directly dictated the fate of today’s pairing options for introductions. During lunch time, Willy B shifted out and Honey B remained up there meaning she was the one that was going to hang out with one of the California Six. On the six’s group, Cy was the one that wanted to stay in the front rooms so that made the decision easy for us. This introduction ended up being very low-key, with an on edge Honey B and only a few direct interactions but all in all positive.
Cy reading a magazine. Not pictured here are Cy’s happy sounds while reading.
Dora hanging out in the green house.
Lucky in her favorite spot of the front rooms with a slinky.
BONUS: A beautiful rainbow over Young’s Hill taken by caregiver Chad.
Second Spring
We humans talk about weather a lot, often marveling at even the predictable and banal. Like me today remarking at the wind gusts, “that’s some wind out there!”
The weather ties everyone to nature, even those who live in jungles made of concrete. It reminds us that we are not, in fact, in control of everything.
After a long and dry summer here at the sanctuary, the fall rains and cloud-filled days felt abrupt and at times a little oppressive. But the plants almost immediately showed their gratitude, making parts of the landscape look like a second spring. The grass sprung from the ground and the grazing animals filled their bellies with this earthly gift.
Today, the skies were clear and the sun bathed the landscape, quickly urging yesterday’s snow to feed the plants some more.
Even the chimps seemed to be operating under the rules of spring, with Jamie insisting I go on two walks with her in a row. One where five other chimpanzees joined, and one that was just the two of us.
On this second walk, with the warm rays of the sun tempering the wind, Jamie was in no hurry. She stopped to inspect a new log placed to brace one of the structures, and then sat on an outpost of that structure, gazing over her kingdom.
As I waited for her signal to continue, I marveled at the signs of plant life emerging amid summer’s leftover debris.
Jamie had me bring one of her new favorite boots on the walk with her. Luckily, she allowed me to wear my own boots and, instead, carry her star-spangled treasure.
As we continued on our walk, I kept looking at the ground and was surprised to see a brazen dandelion in bloom, another reminder of all the plant life under the surface, at the ready for the right conditions to show itself.
When I returned to the chimp house, I looked at the raspberry bushes and noticed new growth, taking one last giant photosynthetic gulp of the season.
Going around to see the six chimpanzees who arrived just shy of five months ago, I found them too soaking in the sun in the shelter of their newly paneled greenhouse.
It’s a little funny that we refer to these areas as greenhouses, a term usually reserved for shelters that allow plants to thrive even when the outside conditions wouldn’t allow the same, and not generally used to refer to shelters for nature’s more mobile kingdom. Today, however, the term seemed more than apt.
While not photosynthesizing, the chimpanzees were certainly soaking in the sun and perhaps storing some energy for future use.
You Can Never Have a Case of the Mondays with this Bunch
Today was a somewhat busy day. While we humans were making progress cleaning enclosures in the morning, we were thwarted by two holdouts by the time the afternoon rolled around. Now I won’t mention names, but…
*ahem*
*ahem*
While it’s pretty easy to work around when certain somebodies holdout, it just adds a little more time to the day. We don’t necessarily get upset about their choice to remain in certain areas we want to clean when we want to clean them because it is just that. Their choice.
During some periodic breaks during cleaning as we tried to develop our next plan of action on the fly, I was able to get these photos.
Hopefully these photos will bring some joy to you on your Monday.
Side Profiles
Throughout the day, as I was taking photos, almost every photo I took seemed like a missed opportunity. The day was the perfect day for photos with the sun not too bright and slight overcast at points. But every time I released the shutter, everybody would turn their heads. It was something I initially didn’t wanted in photos, however, after reviewing what I had taken I realized I had a plethora of side profiles.
Luckily enough, Honey B did allow me to take a photo of her without looking away.
Rayne was the only other person who allowed me to take a capture her beautiful face without looking away.
Wait… Burrito Didn’t Laugh?! + Chimpanzees Who Need Your Voice
Recently, I came across an old video that I narrated that mentioned how rare it was to hear Burrito laughing, and I was surprised.
Wait… Burrito didn’t laugh?!
I searched the blog and found more references to this phenomenon, like this one from as late as 2010, two years after he arrived at the sanctuary with his six groupmates.
Burrito’s laughter reverberates his side of the building frequently now. It’s really hard to believe that wasn’t always the case.
I even quizzed J.B. and he didn’t remember a time when Burrito didn’t laugh.
I talked to former staff member and current volunteer Elizabeth, who took the above video today during a volunteer shift, and she also couldn’t remember a silently-playful Burrito. We did both vaguely remember speculating that Burrito would put his hand or objects in his mouth to muffle the sound of his laughter.
We’re glad Burrito found his (laughing) voice.
Here’s a bonus photo from today of Gordo, Rayne, and Dora. It made me laugh.
All sixteen of the chimpanzees now at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest began their lives or spent decades in biomedical research.
If you are subscribed to our e-newsletter, you should have received an email yesterday (https://chimpsnw.salsalabs.org/novemberupdates) with some sad news for chimpanzees who are just as deserving of a sanctuary life away from laboratories.
While there was promising progress for a number of years getting chimpanzees out of research laboratories and into sanctuaries, there have been some very disturbing decisions by the NIH in the last few years that have left over 90 chimpanzees still in labs.
As the newsletter suggested, one action you can take right now is to reach out to your representatives. Animal Protection of New Mexico makes this easy. Senator Kennedy in Louisiana is speaking out publicly about these decisions and more members of congress should join him.
We’ll be sharing more information about this in the coming weeks.
Lucky’s 30th Birthday Celebration
How lucky are we all that we have Lucky Chimpanzee in our lives now?! As Katelyn described, she is a gentle soul with an ineffable charm.
Her lunch forage, as seen in the video above, also included cherry tomatoes, of course, as we have noticed that is one of her favorite foods. We didn’t get a lot of video or photos of Lucky because she, Rayne and Dora enjoyed the party upstairs while “the boys” partied on the first floor
I love these photos that Kelsi took after the party because they are so sweet and because I know she had to go to some lengths to take the photos through the upstairs window to that playroom.
Lucky is the chimp puddle in the front of the photo below, with Terry far left, Dora far right, Cy behind Lucky, and Rayne’s foot in the right corner:
Lucky and Rayne:
Rayne sleeping off that oatmeal:
Thanks goes to Chad for the party plans, Dr. Erin for the oatmeal idea, Kelsi, Anna, J.B. and Lizz for pulling off simultaneous parties in different parts of the sanctuary, and also to Paulette once again for sponsoring Lucky’s special day.
