Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee retirement

Fort Building 101

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You may have heard, Honey B loves to construct forts. And she has constructed some pretty elaborate nest fortresses. You too can build post-lunch forts just as great as Honey B by following these simple steps:

First, grab your materials to build your walls. Benches, blankets, toys, etc. Troll heads are great too, according to Honey B:

Do you have everything? Good! Now you can start building!

Start by placing enrichment structures around you. Then grab your blankets and begin placing them around you to build your nest. You may also cover yourself with one (optional):

Next, grab a sock and mull over the idea of wearing one to keep your feet warm:

Then decide that you wish for your toes to be free from foot prisons, and grab your toes to appreciate their freedom:

And there you have your Post-Lunch Nest Fortress!

 

And finally, an important message from Mave:

Be sure to practice good oral hygiene after meals:

enrichment for busy chimpanzees

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J.B. and I were the first humans in the chimp house this morning. Before greeting the chimpanzees, I was washing my hands at the kitchen sink and looking out the window that connects to the chimp area when I spotted a stuffed animal being tossed up into the air playfully by a chimpanzee lying on the catwalk.

J.B. walked in the kitchen and I pointed out the quiet play that was going on. We both stood there watching with smiles on our faces and almost simultaneously said, “wait, is that Jamie?!”

You might know that Jamie is a pretty serious boss lady, rarely letting her hair down, so to speak. But there she was, using her feet and hands to bounce and toss around a stuffed animal.

Soon enough, she looked toward the window, noticed us noticing her, and immediately stopped her private game.

Later, when I was cleaning the playroom, I found the stuffed animal that she had been playing with so secretively. See the photo below of the donated stuffed lion. I can see how this piece of enrichment brought out the kid in stoic Jamie.

Enrichment comes in many forms, and it takes a lot to keep busy minds like Jamie’s amused. Enrichment is the antidote to boredom.

That’s why we have a whole database dedicated to sharing and gathering enrichment ideas. We’re always looking for new ways to help chimpanzees at CSNW keep busy and entertained, and we want to help other chimpanzees in captivity living in other facilities by sharing tried and true enrichment.

This time of year, we have a lot of enrichment that is centered around snow. It amazes me how much the chimpanzees love snow! It doesn’t have to be fancy or sweetened, though sometimes we do add treats or flavoring of various kinds. We really don’t have to add anything, though, because they never tire of just plain, pure snow.

After the playroom was cleaned, volunteers Robin and Kiana braved life and limb to harvest some icicles that had formed on the eaves of the chimp house and they created this masterpiece, which everyone enjoyed thoroughly:

Jamie collecting an icicle as Missy waits her turn

Anything novel can be enriching, even if entertaining the chimpanzees was not the original intention. Taking a break from the snow and icicles, Jamie found a new way to amuse herself.

The official name for the Foot Box / Troll Cubby might still be in development. Jamie decided it was the perfect place to store her wooden saw after attempting to saw open the box.

 

Moving over to the other part of the building, we have another busy mind in need of activity and amusement: Honey B

When we began designing the expansion to the chimp building, we decided to include bars in the mezzanine area, similar to what is in the greenhouse, instead of having a solid, flat ceiling. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to do this within an indoor space with the need for insulation and lights above. This challenge was laid all on J.B. to work out with builders.

When Honey B, Willy B, and Mave first moved here, they didn’t use the overhead bars and I felt a bit dejected, partly because I had been such a huge advocate for this design, even though I wasn’t the one who had to engineer it. After all of the hard work that J.B. put into figuring out how to make it work and the considerable extra expense that went into including this feature, the chimpanzees just mostly remained on the floor.

I should have known it would just take some time.

Honey B hanging out

It’s possible that the primate who appreciates the overhead bars even more than Honey B is caregiver Anthony. Here’s something to know about Anthony – he loves hanging fire hose for chimpanzees. And for good reason! Fire hose makes a space more interesting and dynamic, allowing the chimpanzees to move from one area to another (watch this old video or this one), or rest in between.

Speaking of resting, the chimpanzees even incorporate enrichment into their slumbering. Blankets at the sanctuary are a big deal.

Each chimpanzee has a unique style of nesting. Honey B, for example, starts with a base of blankets laid around her. Once settled, she often pulls one blanket over her legs up to her midsection, like a sleeping bag or a burrito. We’re just waiting for her to do that with one of the round tortilla blankets that a donor recently sent. Tonight, however, she used the tortilla blanket under her head.

Tomorrow will be another day full of enrichment. Sweet dreams!

Write Your Own Blog Post!

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That may have come out wrong.

“Write Your Own Blog Post” is actually today’s theme. I wasn’t snapping. I promise.

Think of today’s entry like you would a self-serve car wash or one of those places where you can put whatever topping you want on your fro-yo. I literally want you to view this collection of images that I captured at the sanctuary today and use your imagination to fill in the blanks. The blog is in your hands.

The chimps, cattle and humans had a great day, but we caregivers didn’t have much time to write about it. I wasn’t lacking inspiration, especially since I had some thought-provoking conversations with caregiver Chad and volunteer/professor/board member Jessica as we swept, scrubbed, and served well into the afternoon. None of those thoughts found their way onto the page, though. Sometimes, a few snapshots say more than several paragraphs would, and I hope that is the case this evening.

I’m about to have a late-night bagel, go make a gigantic blanket nest and sleep until tomorrow morning.

Cheers from snowy Cle Elum!

The Yakima River meanders past the sanctuary.
Honey awaits alfalfa and minerals.
Mave investigates the camera lens after breakfast.
With so much snow and ice, just getting to the upper barn was a challenge.
Honey led the herd around the pasture, waiting for me to unload their food.
Burrito was bright and chipper this morning, and had an afternoon grooming session with Jamie.

Snippets of the day

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I was trying to figure out some sort of brilliant narrative that weaves together the photos I took today, but my brilliance level seems to be pretty low right now. So, I’ll just share the photos as little glimpses of the day, which is how I experienced them too.

First, that photo above and the even more precious one below is Jamie and Burrito grooming through the mesh while Burrito is recovering from his latest surgery. They really do seem to like each other sometimes. Jamie may have also been wanting to groom those pieces of distraction tape off of Burrito, but they were all on the other side of his body.

Burrito is doing fantastic, by the way! He’s is hungry and energetic and left his bandage alone again today. We had more snow overnight, so he had an unlimited supply again today.

Next up, we have a photo I took of a nest in the mezzanine of Phase 1. I would put my money on it being a Honey B creation. I just love chimpanzee nests. That pink car was a Christmas gift from a very cool organization called Trees for Tigers that specifically provides enrichment for animals in sanctuaries. I haven’t yet seen anyone get into the car, but Honey B definitely likes to move it around from place to place.

Later, I managed to get the below photo of Willy B before he approached the phone/camera.

And just now, I snapped this photo of Negra grabbing some snow to take up to her night nest:

I write this now listening to the sound of Honey B work on shake bottle enrichment on one side of the building and Jody ripping blankets as she customizes her nest in the loft of the playroom on the other side of the building.

As someone commented to me yesterday, you just never know what a day at the sanctuary will be like because each day with ten chimpanzees who are full of personality is unique.

Flashes Of Fur

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It was a busy day in the Chimp House. We spent most of the morning cleaning up after Burrito’s super birthday bash yesterday, as well as training new interns enrolled in the Captive Care Certificate at Central Washington University.

When I found time to check in on the chimpanzees, it was almost difficult to find them. The Seven mostly kept close together the entire day, in nearly every hard to see spot in the nice, warm Playroom. It was almost like spotting glimpses of Sasquatch at the sanctuary. An arm here. A flash of fur there. A head poking out around the corner every so often.

Negra, on the other hand, is a tried and true type of person. She spent most of the day in her favorite spot in the Playroom soaking up as much sun as she could while waiting for caregivers to finish cleaning and preparing lunch.

Willy B also spent most of his day resting on one of his favorite benches in the Phase 1 area, waiting for the caregivers to finish cleaning and preparing lunch.

I did spot Honey B and Mave a couple of times out in the Chute area, but Honey B decided playing games of chase with me instead of allowing me to take photos (other than today’s main photo) was a better plan.

Burrito’s Walkabout Reunion

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Today was weird, weather-wise. It started out super windy, then the wind subsided and it was nice enough for some outside time for the chimpanzees, then it snowed like it was going to never stop, until it stopped less than an hour later, and finally the sun announced itself as confidently as a spring day, completely erasing all traces of the snowstorm.

We talked it over with Dr. Erin and decided that, with the sun shining, and despite Jamie and her crew being a bit on edge earlier in the day, it was time for Burrito to go back with his group. I was nervous. His recovery has been long and he’s not back to his full strength, but when I went to “talk” to him, he pulled on the door to the greenhouse, letting me know that’s what he wanted to do. I held my breath and hoped for the best. Sometimes that’s all you can do with chimpanzees.

Because he’s been having social time with a few friends in the greenhouse these last weeks, I first let Jamie, Jody, and Foxie in with him and gave them all greenhouse access.

I thought he would be very keen to get back into the playroom since he hasn’t had access to that space in weeks, but when I opened the door to the playroom, Missy and Annie went out and the whole crew (minus nesting Negra), took off for a patrol around Young’s Hill.

It was glorious.

Lucky for you, J.B. followed along and captured some video of the walk, while I got a few photos.

He looks good out there!

 

Here he is between Jamie and Foxie:

 

Missy waiting for him:

When he got into the playroom finally, he and Negra greeted each other enthusiastically, and then everyone went about things as though no time had passed. Right now he is sleeping in the loft of the playroom.

We are still monitoring an injury on one of his toes and he sometimes walks on his wrist, but overall he’s doing great, and the extra exercise and social companionship will hopefully serve him well. Now we just need to convince the “girl gang” to stay calm for a while.

In case there is any lingering questions – we do not have plans to integrate Burrito with Willy B, Mave, and Honey B because of the conflict that caused Burrito’s injuries. Maybe there will be structured social time (“play dates”) in the future between members of the different groups, but maybe not, and not for sometime, in any case.

So, we’re back to the original seven on the old side of the building and the new three on the new side, with plans to start construction as early as we can in the spring. The next phases will give Willy B, Mave, and Honey B more space and will allow us to bring in another group of chimpanzees.

We’re looking forward to whatever the future holds, but today it was just nice to see Burrito outside with old friends in the sun.

Snowy and Groomy Weather

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Our apologies again! We are still having trouble loading the video from the chimpanzee’s New Year celebration the other day due to an internet outage. (I’m currently posting this blog via my personal hotspot from my phone.) I personally blame the current snowy weather.

In the meantime, please enjoy these photos taken around the sanctuary.

Burrito had a playdate with both Jamie and Jody on this snowy day. He decided to spend most of his time inside grooming with Jody:

Of course, that was only when he wasn’t busy asking his caregivers for snowy treats:

Jamie, on the other hand, decided this snowy weather was the perfect weather to wrap herself up in blankets with her current favorite cowboy boot:

On the other side of the Chimp House, Honey B and Mave found today’s snowy conditions to also be perfect for grooming:

Thank you all for being so patient as we try to find a way to share the New Year Celebration video! We hope that tomorrow is the day the internet will be a top strength to share it with all of you.