Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee sanctuary

Say It Ain’t Snow

by

Today’s weather was wild.

The morning began just as yesterday ended: with golden sunshine and unseasonably high temperatures. The cattle, despite their provisioned hay, were basking in the sun and nibbling on the fresh grass that is just starting to take over the pasture.

Betsy

The only indicator of trouble was a distant wall of clouds sweeping down the valley from the northwest. By noon, however, the skies over the sanctuary grew misty and the breeze picked up. Now, as I sit here hammering out this blog post in the foyer of the Chimp House, snowflakes swirl past the windows and gusts of wind howl overhead. Like a boxer lifting themselves back to their feet after a brutal knockdown, this winter let us know that it isn’t ready to quit just yet.

Looking up the valley towards the Central Cascades

Fortunately, we caregivers had checked the forecast and expected the sunny morning to give way to a blustery afternoon. As soon as we opened up the building, served the morning medications and confirmed that the outdoor areas were secure, we scattered the chimpanzees’ breakfast on Young’s Hill as an outdoor forage, taking advantage of the day’s most agreeable weather. The colorful spread included tangerines, pears, and some pineapple tops (the larger chunks of which went into their daily smoothie).

Missy
Jamie
Jody
Annie
Missy
Foxie

Since only one group of chimps can safely access the Hill at any given moment, Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy and Negra went out first. When everyone had gathered up the scattered food, Jamie did her usual patrol of the enclosure’s perimeter and Burrito went inside to goof around with the other chimps and us caregivers.

Burrito

Meanwhile Honey B, Mave and Willy B enjoyed the same breakfast indoors and got the opportunity to use the Courtyard later, just before lunch. Per usual, only Willy B chose to venture out into the open space; the females chose to hang out in the chute and watch the caregivers do chores inside. Honey B was even kind enough to sit still while I took a portrait of her. In exchange, I showed her some chimp photos that I still had on my memory card, including the ones of her. If Honey B was impressed, she hid it well. Honey B

Apart from the volatile weather, today was busy but uneventful. Sometimes it seems like the chimps prefer their days to move that way, with a full itinerary but without anything too unexpected. The right balance of variety and routine is crucial.

Jamie walking the perimeter

Why We Puzzle

by

Raise your hand if you like to do puzzles.

There are lots of different kinds – jigsaw puzzles, word puzzles, logic puzzles, math puzzles, etc, etc. Remember the Rubik’s Cube fad? Or perhaps you are mechanically-minded and like to figure out how things come apart and go back together. Maybe you’re more of a physical person and you like to do actual obstacle courses. Video games are really electronic puzzles, and we know how popular those are.

There was an increase in humans doing puzzles this last year during the pandemic and lockdowns. I’ve read a few articles about why we humans like to puzzle, and the explanations generally include things like: puzzles provide us with a sense of control, and when we solve a puzzle our biology rewards us with a chemical hit of dopamine. There’s some intriguing research showing there’s more than just a dopamine surge going on in our brains when we we are working on puzzles.

We, as primates, are hardwired to solve problems. We often do it all day long, and even choose to do it in our leisure time.

Why am I talking about this?

At the sanctuary, we provide the chimpanzees with food puzzles. A few of them have been featured in recent videos, like Honey B and Willy B acing Anna’s inspired Slinky Madness puzzle and the video that J.B. shared last week of Honey B  fishing out a peanut from a boomer ball puzzle.

On both of those video posts on social media, there were a couple of comments that questioned whether the chimpanzees were being led to frustration with these puzzles. There was even the notion that the puzzles were cruel.

A long-time blog follower, Dan Oksiuta, responded wonderfully to one such comment by saying, “While the puzzles & caging may appear unnecessarily frustrating, it is reasonable to assume they experience the same emotions of accomplishment & satisfaction as humans completing a difficult task. Treats probably taste better, too.”

Thank you for that, Dan!

The food that we include in food puzzles is a really minuscule amount, and it’s outside of their regular meals, so they aren’t choosing to solve puzzles out of hunger. They have a similar drive as we do and receive similar intrinsic rewards for solving puzzles (plus the sweet reward of a peanut isn’t nothing).

For those who have been following the sanctuary for a while, you already know that Jamie is a chimpanzee who often prefers to use a tool to get food instead of having it handed to her. Jamie’s brain seems especially wired for problem solving.

Just like humans, not all chimpanzees are the same. I don’t think I’ve ever done Sudoku and really most of my puzzling and problem solving is more of a practical nature (i.e. “how can I fit just one more houseplant on this table”).

Burrito used to be pretty bad at solving food puzzles, giving up rather quickly. As the years have passed, though, he’s gotten quite accomplished at puzzle solving. Even in the early days, when his puzzle solving wasn’t what it is today, he was eager for the nightly enrichment.

Negra, who is not known to exert extra energy for much of anything, delights in all sorts of food puzzles; in fact it’s a rare evening when she’s not clapping for her caregivers to hurry up with the distribution of the night enrichment. She might prefer the easier enrichment, like peanut butter in between the pages of magazines, but she’ll engage with even the more challenging puzzles before bedding down for the night.

An aside, take a look at our Enrichment Database for examples of the food puzzles as well as the more generalized enrichment we provide.

Boredom is the ever-lurking nemesis for primates in captivity. It can lead to depression and all sorts of strange behaviors. Providing ways for primates to problem solve is one way to keep boredom at bay.

Actually, you could consider forages to be giant food puzzles. When we spread out food, sometimes hiding it, the chimpanzees have to locate and gather their food, and they are in somewhat of a competition with the others in their group. This is an important skill to have and develop when you are a species that must find ripening fruit in the jungle.

Images or videos of chimpanzees in captivity foraging for food, especially if they are outdoors, rarely if ever results in people commenting that it must be frustrating or questioning why we don’t just hand them food (we do that type of serving too). I think it comes back to our superficial, knee-jerk perceptions of animals in captivity. We want to see them in “natural environments”, not necessarily because that’s what they like the most or what’s the most enriching, but because that’s what makes us feel the best.

So, food puzzles hanging on caging just doesn’t sit right with some people. We hear you. We don’t think chimpanzees should be in captivity either, but they are. I wrote a little post called What is Natural a long time ago that addressed something similar.

The thing is, a chimpanzee working on a food puzzle indoors in captivity is a good thing, as long as they also have access to the outdoors, live in a social group, and have a wide variety of other ways to alleviate boredom and do the things they are hardwired to do. It’s as least as natural as a human solving a Sudoku puzzle on their couch.

Here are some photos from today of chimpanzees problem solving:

Foxie with a purpose:

Jody with her forage haul, heading back to the greenhouse:

Jody experiencing the sweet rewards of a successful forage:

Willy B is still the only one of his group of three who will venture into the open Courtyard. Mave and Honey B are more comfortable inside and in the Chute. We’ll be thinking of ways to help them look at the outdoors differently and are hopeful that their expanded space will help, but, in the meantime, we make sure the spaces they do spend their time in have lots of things for them to do.

The next two photos aren’t great, but they show that we put some lettuce on top of the Chute for Mave and Honey B while Willy B went into the Courtyard to get his lettuce.

The photo below is of Mave up high in the Chute pulling the lettuce through. She spends a lot of time with this food puzzle, which we’ve just recently introduced:

Honey B really likes to “groom” pebbles out of our boots. There’s no food reward, but she clearly gets a lot of satisfaction out of this task.

J.B. put lettuce at the top of the structure to entice Willy B to do some extra climbing in the Courtyard.

Sometimes it’s fun to watch other people work. Here’s Mave and Honey B watching J.B. painting murals on the other side of the window.

 

Odds & Ends

by

Every so often, I get that dreadful warning that my phone’s memory is almost at capacity. I have a certain degree of confidence I am not the only one here who constantly takes pictures with their phone, thinks “This would be great for the blog,” then forgets about them when our day to write a blog comes around. There is just so much that happens that it’s hard to share every single photo we take, especially those taken on our phones of these by chance instances.

So without further ado, here are some of the photos that have been sitting in my phone’s memory bank:

Mave relaxing. I had at one point thought to write a blog about primate feet, specifically the differences between ape feet. The furthest I got was getting this photo of Mave’s foot to show just how similar and different they are compared to ours.
Foxie food peering at Negra, hoping she was in the mood to share her breakfast even though she had already eaten her own. Spoiler: Negra was not in the mood to share hers.
Speaking of food peering, Willy B peering at Honey B wondering why she was so excited. On this day a couple of weeks ago, we served a very ripe jackfruit. Willy B had zero interest in it at first and threw his to the ground in protest. Honey B on the other hand, knew exactly what it was and ate hers in a haste and collected as many of the ones Willy B discarded as she could. There may have been some buyers remorse on Willy B’s end, though he ended up taking some of the corn Honey B discarded. Seemed like a fair trade.
When cleaning the playroom, if I am near a certain window scrubbing, I usually get a little surprise from Burrito, who seemingly appears out of no where. One day, I figured out just where he pops up from.
Mave. Just Mave. Does this photo really need any further explanation?
Burrito enjoying his breakfast oranges sitting in a cube chair.
Foxie hanging upside down, laughing in one of the Front Rooms. Play is usually her tactic for me when she doesn’t want me to close any of the doors. In this case, she didn’t want me to close the Front Rooms to allow us to clean.

Honey B decided her red skateboard needed some adjustments to it.
Barn Kitty waiting for a staff member to arrive at the sanctuary in the morning to feed him.
In case you didn’t know, Barn Kitty is a semi-feral cat who has called our barn home from time-to-time. So we have a little area in the barn for him to use or not use. It’s his choice.

There is one photo from today. Spring is officially here! And to celebrate this wonderful season, Jamie has decided there needs to be a couple more patrols around the Young’s Hill before she will allow the staff to close it up for the night.

And if you haven’t heard, we will be participating in the Global Primatology Virtual Conference hosted by Central Washington University and the Primate Awareness Network. We are scheduled to present March 25th (this Thursday) at 4:00PM PST. Be sure to also check out some of the other amazing speakers!

Meredith

by

Those of you who follow CSNW on Instagram may have noticed that we regularly feature images of the four rescued Jersey cattle who graze the pastures around the sanctuary. Since these herbivorous creatures are so different from their chimpanzee neighbors, focusing on the cattle can be a welcome change of pace for the sanctuary staff and social media followers alike.

In the recent “Bovine Break” post from a couple days ago, we shared a photograph of the four Jersey cattle resting together in their winter paddock. They have formed a tightly-knit herd and are rarely seen apart, which is justified given their history and family bonds. Still, they each have their own colorful personality and quirky tendencies, and the image highlighted one of these characteristic traits.

While Betsy, Honey and Nutmeg were all aligned so they could view the hills and forests to the north of the sanctuary, Meredith was turned completely around and facing the other direction, chewing her cud without any indication that she wanted to conform with the others. We always joke that she has idiosyncratic tendencies, but it was nice to capture it visually for all to see. Standing while the others lay down, laying down while the others stand, facing the opposite direction, lagging behind the group… such is Meredith’s nature.

I used her peculiarity to my advantage when I went out to photograph the cattle this afternoon. The other three acted inconvenienced and trotted away, but Merry quietly waddled alongside me at her own pace. She’s not always in an affectionate mood, but she occasionally paused to suspiciously sniff my muck boots and gently lick my hands. We stopped at the paddock gate where she stood and watched the others (who had nonchalantly strolled through together). Eventually, I left them to their own endeavors. Apart from the satisfaction of capturing some nice portraits, I was also content to share a peaceful moment with this odd individual.

Volunteers Behind the Scenes

by

Last week I wanted to focus on Spring Negra, which meant there were some photos that didn’t make the cut for the blog. Luckily, I just remembered them! Look no further than the end of this post for the non-Negra photos from last week’s lunch forage.

But first, a word about volunteers.

Probably everyone reading this knows that the pandemic has drastically reduced the number of volunteers that are onsite helping with the daily operations of the sanctuary. There are currently just two volunteers who have basically been additional part-time staff members, cleaning alongside us and trying to keep up with Burrito. We owe them a huge amount of gratitude for all of the hours they’ve worked.

In addition to halting our regular volunteer program, we also put the Central Washington University daily intern shifts on hold until we feel that we can safely loosen restrictions without putting the chimpanzees at risk.

Volunteers and interns have been helping in other important ways, however.

They have been making paper braids in the shed near the chimp house, proof-reading marketing material, delivering totes brimming with lovingly-rolled chow bags, organizing community outreach events like the art contest and upcoming showing at Gallery One in Ellensburg, helping write grant proposals, entering historical medical data into new software, painting mountain murals in the new playrooms (we’ll share photos soon!), helping plan virtual fundraisers (The Queen’s Brunch coming to a computer near you on June 13th), and much more.

While volunteers continue to contribute to the smooth operation and outreach efforts of the sanctuary, our all-volunteer board of directors focuses on the really high-level behind-the-scenes work that you may never even hear about, like creating policies that ensure the sanctuary as an organization can carry on the vision of helping primates for a long time to come.

This strange past year has provided a lot of lessons and new perspectives, but, no matter what, we will remain grateful to those who choose to give their time to help the chimpanzees and bovines too. The sanctuary wouldn’t be what it is today without the unpaid yet hard and important work of so many people.

Thank you all!

Here are those promised photos. This first series is, “Foxie and the Carrot”:

 

This is simply: “Missy in Profile”

And this I was going to call “Burrito with Tomatoes” but I realize that might be confusing… so perhaps, “Burrito Enjoys a Forage Break” is better:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

by

My goodness today was a busy day! We had two great parties for the chimps and a staff meeting too! The seven celebrate with a Hill forage and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. On the other side Honey B, Willy B, and Mave celebrated with some pots of gold in the chute as well as a St. Patrick themed meal. What was on the menu you might be asking? Of course, there was lots of cabbage, beets, potatoes, and corn! Since today was so busy I thought maybe I would let the photos speak for themselves.

Here is a photo of the three’s pots of gold(en potatoes). It was a great day to eat in the chute and sit in the warm sunshine.

And another photo of what was for lunch!

Negra was the first one out for the party!

Jody got a few good hauls of cabbage.

Burrito didn’t do too bad either.

Missy zipped around everyone snatching up cabbage and potatoes left and right!

Annie took a more low key approach than Missy.

Foxie took a birds eye view approach.

And Jamie, well Jamie did every well for herself :).

I love this photo of her.

The three didn’t really want their photos taken today, but I managed to get a few.

When Mave saw lunch she got very excited! You can see she is pilo in this photo. Mave was hooting and asking for reassurance.

Willy B enjoying some corn!

And Honey B enjoying her pot of gold(en potatoes).

Rejoice

by

Spring is still in its infancy in Cle Elum. The nights are cold, and we will likely see more snow, but it will be the kind of snow that is there one minute and gone the next. There’s no holding back the change in the seasons now.

This change from winter to spring is often the most dramatic. It surprises me every year. I don’t forget that the days gradually stretch in synchrony with the plants reaching for the sun, but I do forget what it really feels like. I can’t seem to conjure up the experience unless it’s authentically occurring.

I remember that the group of seven chimpanzees spend more time outside, and that we often scatter their meals out across Young’s Hill, the two acre habitat. We have thousands of photos of this. But still, watching and feeling the first forages of the season is familiar, but also new all over again.

This winter was, overall, remarkably mild. You may recall that we had a very notable Christmas celebration forage on the hill on December 19th. It was notable because Negra climbed up to the lookout for the first time in pursuit of a pineapple top. Go ahead, go re-live that glorious day.

Today we set out a lunch forage for the group of seven. Negra was the first one out of the raceway and onto the hill. She didn’t go even halfway up the hill, but she did seem to be remembering, like me, what spring feels like.

I couldn’t help but take a ridiculous number of photos of her as she sat, as she stretched to reach pieces of food, and as she walked, in all her glory, back inside. I encourage you to pause on each of the photos and remember. Remember that feeling of warmth and life and hope.

Maybe there are more pineapple climbing adventures in Negra’s future. But, even if there are not, today’s emergence was fulfilling.

 

On the other side of the building, Willy B spent some time sitting on the boardwalk.

We did a forage of a different sort by placing lettuce on top of the chute. I didn’t get any great photos of this forage, but Honey B, Willy B, and Mave all partook of the bounty, with Mave in particular getting into the foraging spirit.

In just a few months, the three will have new spaces to explore while we will work on creating their version of Young’s Hill that will be called The Bray. And six more chimpanzees will join that side of the building.

There’s a lot of hope in the air.