Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimpanzee

Time to Eat

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We’ve mentioned foraging many times on this blog before. It’s such a fundamental part of being a chimpanzee, that we had one of the seven behavioral booths at our recent Hoot! gala dedicated to this activity and explaining how we find ways to allow the chimpanzees here to express this behavior. Anything involving food is exciting for chimpanzees, but finding it on your own is particularly exciting.

Yesterday, Jody won the award for stuffing the most foraged food in her mouth at one time:

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Jody with stuffed mouth

 

Though Missy certainly gets an honorable mention:

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Sidewalks!

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You may have picked up that Katelyn mentioned that J.B. and Ken Mikkelson were prepping the areas around the chimp house for sidewalks on Wednesday, and yesterday the Poppoff crew came out and started work on forming the concrete. Today they finished the sidewalks and now they are curing and drying so we can start using them in a few days. The Poppoffs are long-time supporters of the sanctuary and have helped us with other construction projects including Young’s Hill and even years ago when we created the greenhouse.

So, why sidewalks? It’s all part of the veterinary clinic project that we started last year. The cement pad in front of the gate will make it easier if we need to move big equipment in or out of the chimp house, including the trailer itself. The sidewalks go from the chimp area doors to the clinic, so we can easily transfer a chimp to the clinic if we need to. They also will be much nicer to shovel and put ice melt on in the winter! So, we are pretty excited about these sidewalks.

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The chimps were very interested in all the work going on, and watched from Young’s Hill:

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Foxie’s Secret Language

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Some forms of chimp communication are universal. Chimps the world over food grunt, make play faces, and pant-hoot. While there are variations to all of these behaviors based on culture and geography, they are all part of a common chimp language.

But chimps also develop communicative behaviors all their own. My favorite example is Foxie. When Foxie adopted her first troll doll, she was extremely protective of it and became visibly upset when “Trixie,” as we named her, wound up in the hands of someone else. But over time, she began to trust us with her dolls, and at that point she actually started to use her troll dolls as a way to signify that it was time to socialize with her. While I really have no idea what is going on in Foxie’s mind, I like to think of it like this: She knows that we would never take her doll away from her, so when she hands one to us, she knows we have to stick around. You have my troll, so until I ask for it back, you’re all mine. At least that’s my guess as to how it started. Now we don’t even question it – it’s just how things work around here.

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When we come to work in the morning, Foxie passes us a troll to say hello and starts to do her playful acrobatics. And when we are locking up for the night, she often drops a troll on our heads from the loft, as a way of saying: Just five more minutes, then you can go. When she’s done with us, she asks for it back and she goes on with her day.

And it’s not just humans on the receiving end. When Foxie wants to play with Jamie, she will run up, stomp her feet, and hand a troll directly to her.

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Jamie knows that this is an invitation to a playful game of keep-away. Some of the best play bouts between Foxie and Jamie, like this one from earlier in the week, involve a troll doll (you’ll see that Jamie has it tucked into her pelvic pocket).

But sometimes Foxie goes from playful to genuinely concerned about her doll, and at that point Jamie knows to give it back immediately. No one likes to see Foxie upset.

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Who knew that a weird fad toy from the 60’s (sorry, Foxie) would become such an important part of a chimpanzee’s life?

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Interrupted play

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Today Burrito and Foxie were wrestling and chasing and just being super playful in the greenhouse. Their laughter got to be pretty loud, and I think it caught Jamie’s attention…

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…She came out to see what was going on, and stepped right between Burrito and Foxie to interrupt their play.

This is a very boss-like thing to do in chimp society. We (lovingly) refer to Jamie as the “party police” because of instances like this.

But this time, she didn’t cease all playing—instead, she immediately started wrestling with Foxie and began to play “tug-o-troll” with her.

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The Day After

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Aside from working directly with and for the chimpanzees every day, the thing I love most about working for Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is seeing how deeply people near and far care about the chimps – not just in the abstract, but as individuals. After decades of being treated as little more than faceless numbers, it’s incredibly heartwarming that people across the country and across the world love and appreciate Foxie for her love of troll dolls, Burrito for his epic food squeaks, and so on.

Last night’s Hoot! gala in Seattle was an amazing success and an absolute joy. People came to celebrate and support the chimps they love, or to acquaint themselves with the Cle Elum Seven for the first time. Check out the e-newsletter about the event that Diana sent out this morning here. (If you’re not yet signed up for our email list, you can do that here.) And be sure to watch the video that gala attendees saw at the event last night.

If you weren’t able to make it last night, you can still show your love for the chimps by donating here.

Today the chimpanzees are celebrating by enjoying the green grass and sunshine on Young’s Hill. After picking a couple of dandelions, Jody spent some time overseeing the unloading of the event supplies from the U-Haul.

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A million thanks to everyone who helps us continue to care for the chimps we love so much.

Play initiation and Hoot!

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Tonight is our very first Hoot! gala event and I’m so excited to see everyone. I hope you all are ready to Give a Hoot! tonight! And don’t worry, for those of you that aren’t able to make it to the gala, we are going to have an online auction later this summer so everyone can participate.

Yesterday I posted about Jamie’s huge paper nest, but I left out a couple photos that Elizabeth took that day. She captured Annie initiating some play by biting on the handrail of the stairs in the playroom, right above where Jamie was nesting. Missy couldn’t resist her invitation and of course started play slapping and wrestling immediately. They didn’t seem to mind that Jamie was trying to perfect her nest just inches away—and luckily, Jamie didn’t seem to be disturbed, either.

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Lots and lots of paper

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We’ve posted about the enrichment theme “lots of paper” before, but it never gets old with the chimps. They love it, so we try to work that theme into each month—so long as we have extra paper to spare. Yesterday we had plenty, including a bunch of paper from some boxes that were shipped from Amazon when people sent us supplies we needed from our wishlist. You probably didn’t know you were helping us stock the shelves AND enriching the chimps at the same time did you? 🙂

Jamie definitely appreciated the extra paper, and we threw in some crepe paper, toilet paper, and a big roll of red paper for additional nesting materials. She built the biggest paper nest I’ve seen! It was an all day project that she returned to a few times to perfect her comfy spot.

First, she started with the brown paper from the Amazon boxes and added the giant roll of red paper.

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She abandoned it at one point (probably to go on a perimeter walk of Young’s Hill) and you can see just how elaborate it is:

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Later she returned and added some toilet paper, which she reportedly had wrapped around her like a mummy but when the paparazzi (Elizabeth) arrived she quickly brushed it off herself. The toilet paper added a nice softness to the nest and she curled up with some boots to take a mid-day nap.

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