Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Be mine, Rayne

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Today is the last day of February and the last of our “Be Mine” blog series. To top it off, it’s also leap day and time to highlight a very special chimpanzee on an out of the ordinary day. Rayne is an extraordinary person so it all seems to fit perfectly! Rayne is calm, collected and intelligent. She has an aura of wisdom and grace about her, but isn’t afraid to be silly and exuberant. She also can be fiery during conflicts when she needs to be.  She loves smoothies and drinks and is very particular about her eating habits. She likes her food in a certain order and when it seems like she doesn’t want a produce item, caregivers know to circle back to her at the end of a meal to re-offer her some items.  Rayne is a skilled lounger and can make boxes and firehose swings look extremely comfortable.  Similar to Jamie, she too has turned into a Bonobo aficionado and can often be spotted carrying one of those picture books around.

Rayne was born January 29th, 1990 in the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates. Her parents were Herbie and Thelma, which makes her half siblings to Cy, Lucky and Honey B.  She also has a strong resemblance to Tatu, her half sister who lives at the Fauna Foundation in Canada.

Honey B, Rayne and Cy:

Rayne is a popular chimpanzee and has a solid relationship with all her group mates. It’s been especially fun to watch her and Honey B’s relationship blossom into a great friendship (even though they definitely fight like sisters).

Rayne’s quiet confidence has been on full display this past year as she has conquered the Bray without hesitation. As soon as she gained access to their new outdoor area, it was like she was made for it.  There’s nothing better than watching her step outside and stride up the hill to find a comfortable spot on a platform or a peaceful place in the shade.

Rayne has a list of 8 very special Pals you too can be a part of. Thanks to Vicki, Monica, Melody, Elizabeth, Elijah, Adrienne, Kim, Diana K, and Tami for being Rayne’s Pals.

Happy leap day everyone! Now seems like the perfect moment to fall in love with Rayne.

Be Mine, Mave

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I’m excited to continue our Be Mine series with the one and only, floofy, loveable, Mave.

Mave (also known as Mavis, Mavie, Mavie Baby, and/or half of the formidable pair known as Mora) came to CSNW on August 18, 2019 with Willy B and Honey B. Mave was born on September 25th, 1989 at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). Our records state that her mother’s name was LuLu, who was owned and kept for years by the Primate Foundation of Arizona, a ‘chimpanzee breeding colony and behavioral research center‘.

We’ve, thankfully, been able to learn more about Mave over the last few years. We originally did not know who Mave’s father was, but early last year we discovered that her father is Conrad– meaning that she is half-siblings with our very own Terry! They definitely resemble each other in both face and general floof level. It’s really comforting to know this detail about their lives.

We also learned the real date of Mave’s birthday! We had chosen to celebrate her birthday on May 27th, since her medical records had not included her date of birth. Then we learned that her actual birthday is September 25th, so last year we celebrated two birthdays for Mave (and also for Willy B)!

Mave spent the first seven years of her life at LEMSIP, before moving to Wildlife Waystation in 1996 when LEMSIP closed. She lived there for 23 years before coming to CSNW, after Wildlife Waystation closed due to financial difficulties. She now lives in a group of nine after the integration of her group with the ‘Lucky Six’.

During her time at LEMSIP, after she was taken from her mother and put in the nursery to be raised by human technicians, Mave lived with a male chimpanzee named Goliath. From the stories we have heard, they were a closely bonded pair. They continued to live together after moving to Wildlife Waystation for many years until he passed away.

It’s easy to fall in love with Mave.

She knows how to relax and enjoys spending time totally sprawled out on the floor, on her back with her feet up against the wall. She has the self-care concept locked down.

Mave also has some of the *best* food squeaks in the building. When we bring out meals, sometimes even before she has seen what’s on the cart, you can usually hear her high-pitched food squeaks through the foyer.

Mave loves, and she loves hard. When she has decided that you are one of her people, that’s it. She can take a while to warm up to the humans and I remember it took a while for her to interact with me outside of meals. I personally feel like I’ve seen a change in our relationship in the last few months, in the sense that I’ve spent more time grooming with her, knuckle-rubbing, or interacting with her through a game of chase. A year and a half of patience is totally worth it to be her friend. She is intentional in her relationships and we love her for it.

In her chimp family, she is the ‘Mo’- to Dora’s ‘Ra’. The two of them became fast friends when their groups were integrated and now they are almost always found within a few feet of each other. When they get excited or scared, they will often run into the others arms for a nice, reassuring hug. It didn’t take long for them to earn the nickname ‘Mora‘ from staff, since they are attached at the proverbial hip. They spend a lot of time grooming, sitting next to each other, playing, sitting near each other, napping (near each other)… They are the best of friends. Integrating two groups of chimps is stressful, but seeing the bonds they’ve all made with each other has made it worth it- especially these two. Mave lost Goliath, but she was able to find Dora and for that I am grateful.

Mave also has a bit of a saucy streak. The groups were integrated, she determined Dora was her person, and the next thing we knew she was putting a quick stop to a certain behavior from Terry. She looks out for her friends.

It’s not just with Terry that we’ve seen Mave stand up for something that she believes in. We’ve mentioned her complicated relationship with Gordo in the blog before, where she feels motivated to pressure him into giving up some of his food to her during meals. He’s gotten pretty good at avoiding her, but if she finds him he’ll give her an empty bag or the butt of a carrot instead of a whole item. It’s brilliant on Gordo’s part, and I think maybe it shows that for Mave it’s less about the food item and more about the power dynamic.

On the flip side of relaxing and intimidating Gordo, she is often found grooming or playing with her family. She can be so relaxed and then she’ll get involved in a fast paced game of chase that has her moving through all the chimp spaces! If you want to see more of her goofy side, watch the ‘Fall in Love’ video below. It’ll put a smile on your face, I promise.

We love Mave and we love that you all love her, too! Thank you so much to Mave’s current Chimpanzee Pals; Vicki, Monica, Sharlene, Heather & Jarrod, Craig & Kim, Lisa, and Laura.

Do you feel like you connect with Mave, a bit like how she’s connected to Dora? You can become her Pal, too! Click here for more.

Be Mine, Terry

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Terry. Dear, sweet, loveable Terry.

Terry was born on June 13, 1990 at the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP). According to our records, his father was Conrad and his mother was Carrie. Although I can’t currently put faces to the names of his parents, the act of naming them and acknowledging their life in biomedical research feels significant.

Terry lived at LEMSIP for the first six years of his life before going to Wildlife Waystation (WW) in 1996 when LEMSIP closed. Terry was taken from his parents at a very young age to be raised in the ‘nursery’ by human technicians. Being born in a lab means that he was denied many things that he would have experienced had he been born in the wild, and one of these things is the opportunity to know his mom. To highlight how traumatizing that must have been, consider that wild male chimpanzees live in their natal groups their whole lives, are nursed by their mothers for the first five years, and then rely on them still as they transition to adulthood.

Interestingly, Dr. Mahoney, who was acting director of LEMSIP when it was closing, wrote about sending the juvenile chimps to WW in his book titled From Elephants to Mice and mentioned Terry by name. He labeled Terry, who was six and a half years old at the time, as ‘the philosopher of the group’.

Terry lived at WW for 25 years before he came to CSNW with the rest of the ‘Lucky Six‘ (Terry + Cy, Gordo, Rayne, Dora, and Lucky) on June 26, 2021. He now lives in a group of nine, after the integration of his group with Honey B, Willy B, and Mave in April of 2022. Amazingly, we found out in 2023 that Terry and Mave are half-siblings! They share a father (Conrad) and they also share lightly colored, speckled noses. 🙂

Mave (left) with half-brother, Terry (right)

Terry is a special guy. Lovingly referred to as ‘Teeny tiny Terry‘ (and, sometimes, ‘Meatball‘, due to his hunched posture) he is a big guy with an extremely gentle heart. One of my favorite memories of Terry is when we gave them roses for enrichment and Terry sat with his, gently grooming the individual petals with just one of his large fingers. Seeing such a big guy holding such a little flower with such care is a memory I will always hold dear.

Terry is known for blowing raspberries all day, every day- it is the chorus to which we live our lives. And, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. He loves to groom his caregivers boots and will give you his full, undivided attention when he does. My favorite thing is when he crouches down on his side to better groom our boots, eyes focused on whatever he has deemed needs to be groomed, and teeth clacks in his lip smacking kind of way.

He has a way of making you feel like your presence really matters.

Not just with his human friends, either. He is a reliable and popular member of his family of nine. In the afternoons, he is often seen grooming the others in big grooming piles and is known to play with just about everyone. He is loveable, all around.

Terry (left) plays with Honey B (right)

He loves most all foods and gets really excited for things like apples, corn, and red bell peppers. And, as soon as he is done with one item and ready for you to serve the next, you better believe he will start blowing raspberries. The loud raspberries fulfill two actions- he gets your attention, and he also likely scrambles your thoughts a bit so that you forget if you gave him the whole serving of produce or not. Teeny Tiny Terry may also be a Teeny Tiny Trickster.

When I started as a caregiver here, and was still in the beginning phases of training, I remember Terry would find me whenever I was on that side of the building. As I was doing safety or chimp ID tests, he would often be sitting right in front of me raspberry-ing away. At that point in our training we limit our interactions to polite head nods, but I was so looking forward to getting to know Terry when I was cleared for interactions.

What has followed is a friendship that I feel honored to have. I often try to find time in the afternoons to hang out with him and the result is us passing a stick back and forth so that he grooms my boot, I groom his arm, he grooms my hand, I groom his leg, so on and so forth. After a while of that, he will often pause to look away for a moment. When he turns back to me, he will stand up slightly and begin to poke the bottom of my boots harder with his fingers. A few breathy pants later and we’re off on a game of chase.

Oh, and he also really loves snowballs. Because, you know, Teeny Tiny Terry isn’t complete without a Teeny Tiny Snowball. 🙂

Terry’s gentle nature is in stark contrast to the unkind situation he was born into. He owes us nothing, but he makes our days better by just being himself and for that I will be forever grateful.

Terry is a one of a kind kind of guy and we’re so lucky to know him. A huge thank you to his current Chimpanzee Pal’s Vicki, Monica, Robert & Debbie, Amy, Debbie, and Holly for sponsoring him.

You, too, can be Terry’s Chimpanzee Pal and help us give him the care and love he deserves!

Fall in love with him today, just like we have. 

Be Mine, Annie (Plus Bonus Valentine’s Day Footage!)

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We had a blast celebrating Valentine’s Day (and World Bonobo Day) yesterday! The chimps had love-themed parties, complete with sparkling juice, cherries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, purple potatoes, and heart shaped cookies (thanks to our awesome volunteer, Nancy :))! I hope you enjoy the video from yesterday’s festivities, put together by Kelsi!

Valentine’s Day might be behind us, but we’ll take any chance we can to give some individual love to our residents. Today, I want to highlight our sweet, playful, and curious: Annie.

We celebrate Annie’s birthday on September 10th. She was born in 1974, possibly in the wild. She spent over half of her life in biomedical research at the Buckshire Corporation in Pennsylvania before arriving at CSNW on June 13, 2008. When Annie first arrived at CSNW from the lab, she was a very anxious individual. Like Caregiver Elizabeth wrote in this blog from 2015, “Annie was not brimming with confidence when she arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. (This is an understatement.) She had a couple of things working against her: her position at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, and decades of history in research labs during which she lived in fear and frequent pain. She had every reason to believe that the world was not kind.“

Annie, in June of 2008, after arriving at CSNW:

While in biomedical research, Annie was used for hepatitis vaccine studies. She also had several babies during that time- all of whom were taken from her, at just a few days old, and put into research themselves. From the research and records we have, Annie might have had seven children: Mariah and Virgil who live at Save the Chimps (STC) sanctuary in Florida, Damian who lived at STC until his death in 2011; Tobias who was at Chimp Haven sanctuary in Louisiana until his death in 2014; Petra whose last known location was the New Iberia Research Center, but we believe is now deceased; Abby who appears to have died in a biomedical laboratory; and Brooke who we have no records of her whereabouts.

Annie never had the chance to raise her children, but I know that she would have been an attentive, kind, and loving mom if she had had the chance.

Annie with her best friend, Missy:

annie kiss missy

Annie loves spending time with her BFF, Missy, and is less likely to engage with the humans as much as some of her other group mates (like Jamie and Burrito, for example). She is low ranking in her group and is often pretty focused on being vigilant to avoid any issues in her group.

Annie is known for making her sweet bird-noises, by getting her face wet and putting her hand over her nose and blowing. As an intern, I often thought a bird had found its way into the chimp house, but it was Annie chirping away. One of my favorite things about this is that when she uses water from the lixit to get her face wet, she will often give her face a little wash. The result leaves the hair on top of her head all wet and spiky and sticking straight up, which is just the best.

Annie, mid face-wash-bird-noise:

Annie is also known for her bipedal walk on Young’s Hill when the grass is wet, or tall, or there’s snow on the ground, or it’s muddy… Looking out to see her bipedally walking, with her long arms swinging and her hands kind of angled in, is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Bipedal Annie:

I adore Annie so much for all these reasons and so many more. I’m sure that I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot about her as I write this today. She still exhibits anxiety and is low ranking in her group, but she has grown so much since arriving at CSNW. She has experienced so much here that has caused her to go outside of her comfort zone (Young’s Hill, the expansion, etc.) and she has taken it all in stride.

She is happy to let others lead the way, but she is a sincere friend and sweet soul. She is more content to hang out with Missy and her chimp family than the humans, and I love her for that. She puts a lot of intentional work into those important relationships and I think that’s something we can all learn from.

When I began staff training, it took a while for me to start having interactions with Annie outside of serving. I remember that being normal, since she’s more of a chimps-chimp. I remember the first time that she came over and gave me a kiss through the caging on the back of my hand, and the first time she asked to groom my boots, and the first time she let me groom her back.

Moments with Annie are intentional and special, and I’m grateful for all of them.

We’re so lucky to know her and we love sharing her story and moments with all of you. Thank you so much to Vicki, Monica, Donna, Sharlene, Sylvia, Susan, Myra, Nancy, Chris & Lee Ann, Judy, and Karla for being Annie’s Chimpanzee Pal’s!

If you love Annie as much as I do, or have a family member that does, consider sponsoring her and become Annie’s Chimpanzee Pal!

A Dear Friend

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Today has been one of those days where, while prepping lunch for Jamie’s group, I accidentally counted seven portions instead of six. And, earlier this week, I counted out chow bags for seven before I caught myself and had to remove the portion I had accidentally made for Jody. Little things like this happen almost every week since last May, but sometimes they’re more frequent.

When I sat down a little bit ago to start writing my blog, I didn’t expect to start writing about this. Even though it’s mid-February and still winter here in Cle Elum, WA, the sun has been out all day and the temperature currently sits at 43 degrees. There is a bit of wind to remind us that it is still winter, but the chimps have been taking full advantage of the sunshine. We were able to do a lunch forage for Cy’s group today on the Bray and Terry, Rayne, and Gordo went right out to enjoy it. Honey B is still healing from her recent procedure and is recovering well. Jamie’s group has been mostly lounging in the warm greenhouse, where they can be in the sun and out of the wind. All that to say, it’s been a really lovely day.

I’m no expert on grief- I don’t know how best to work through it or why it commands our attention on certain days over others. Maybe she’s been more on my mind lately because we’re creeping up on the one year anniversary of her passing, or perhaps it’s the stress from worrying about Honey B during her recovery. All I know is that, sometimes, grief isn’t content to stay hidden in our subconscious.

On April 27th, I wrote a blog about the quintessential spring day- foraging, perfect weather, Negra yelling at crows to get away from her forage, etc. I didn’t know that it would be my last blog featuring Jody, without also featuring the deep grief of missing her. She was a dear friend and we miss her every day.

The loss of a friend like Jody runs deep. I wonder if the fact that today feels like an early spring gift after the dark of winter is what brings up the absence of her presence. My mind says that she should be grooming in the greenhouse, walking on the hill, and enjoying the warm sunshine with her family.

At first I thought I would delete all that, because it feels quite somber. But, grief thrives in isolation- does it not?

Plus, I think it would be a disservice to Jody to not write of her, despite the vulnerable nature of grieving, both when we are sad from missing her or when we are happy and reliving the 15 years that she had with us here in sanctuary.

I’m a firm believer that it’s our responsibility to not only care for the individuals that call CSNW home, but to advocate for them and share their stories as far as we can. Jody was a remarkable person and the world is better off for knowing her and her story.

So, maybe, as we approach the first anniversary of her passing, it would be nice to share in some comfort & community. Share your favorite Jody stories in the comments below and let’s remember her, together.

Photos from today’s February-Spring-Day:

Annie, Missy, & Jamie looking out to Young’s Hill this morning after I gave them access:

Negra and Burrito, sharing a barrel during breakfast:

Gordo, enjoying the sunshine in the greenhouse:

Rayne, being absolutely perfect:

Terry during today’s lunch forage, running back with a mouth full of grapefruit:

Wood Wool Forage and More!

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Providing enrichment opportunities for the chimps and watching them enjoy the experience is truly a rewarding part of our job. Today we put out peanut butter frisbees, which is a favorite among Negra’s group. Surprisingly, Jamie shared this food puzzle with everyone including Foxie! After cleaning the playroom we noticed we had a lot of leftover wood wool. We decided to put the wood wool out in the green house and put out seeds in the wood wool for the chimps to search for. Watching them problem solve and find different tactics to engage with their enrichment always motivates us to keep creating more ways to enrich them throughout the day. Overall, making enrichment for chimpanzees is not only fun, but also deeply enriching for both chimpanzees and their caregivers.

Don’t forget to test your knowledge of chimpanzees and other primates!

Burrito tossing the wood wool around:

Negra stepped out onto Young’s Hill today 🙂

Jamie:

Goofy little Foxie:

Foxie grooming Negra in the green house:

Catching Up With the Nine

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With all the snow and sleet as well as Honey B recovering, the group of nine haven’t been able to get out on the Bray. Today all that changed, after breakfast and some relaxation while caregivers cleaned, the group got outside at lunch time to enjoy the sunshine we’re having right now! Enjoy today’s video of the nine going back out on the Bray!

Cy:

Willy B:

W