Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimpanzee

Valentine’s Day fun

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Parties are so much fun here at CSNW. On today’s party menu was strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, dried pears, bananas, beets, sunflower seeds and tons of mixed nuts. We received a plethora of decorations and new toys from our friends Dick and Robbi Brown, Felicity, Stephanie, and Kate. Food was hidden in all kinds of Valentine’s Day themed boxes, cups, and gift bags and the playroom was filled with awesome new toys, including at least 5 new Valentine’s Day troll dolls. Thanks so much everyone!

Step one= party:

Annie drinking pomegranate juice:

Jamie opening her “Valentine”:

Foxie checking out one of her new Valentine’s Day trolls:

Step 2= nap.

Negra in her festive Valentine’s Day nest:

Burrito getting in touch with his feminine side:

Needless to say, a good time was had by all! Happy Valentine’s Day!

An Unusual Play Trio

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J.B. and I were cleaning the playroom this morning, when we saw Negra, Foxie and Annie playing together. This is quite the unusual trio of playmates, and I’ve never seen Negra play this long in one stretch! There was more than what is shown in the video, but it was challenging filming conditions – through the glass window with the playroom filling up with steam from cleaning. J.B. caught some choice moments, and I know Negra fans will be thrilled.

Still time to get chocolate for your sweetie!

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Just two more days to make a donation of $40 or more and in return receive a unique and delicious (believe me, I’ve sampled one) organic vegan Sjaak’s chocolate bar with a special label celebrating Annie and Missy’s love. Use our Valentine’s Donation form and give a Valentine’s gift to the chimps and your loved one!

chocolate bars

Jamie looking at you and More New Stuff

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First, Jamie:

Jamie looking at you

Now: more new stuff.

There’s no doubt that the Cle Elum Seven have the best supporters out there. Remember all of the new stuff that I posted about back in December? Well, the gifts have kept coming.

In addition to the heater that is keeping J.B. warm as he welds (thanks to Barb in Ohio), we received that metal shelving unit from local supporters Shelley and Patty that we asked for before the holidays. Take a look at the before photo on our Holiday Wishes blog post (4th photo down after the Burrito photo) and the after photo below!

wire shelving

We also received two door mats from Tamela. I probably couldn’t even explain how happy the door mats have made me, because I might sound ridiculous. Let me just say that before we received the new foot bath mat and the door mat from Tamela, our set-up was a tall pan with a towel in front of it. And the door mat we had by one of the human doors to the outside was a ripped piece of astro turf. Below is a photo of the doormat to the outside. The mirror on the door is for the benefit of the chimps (not so I can take photos of my legs) and was a gift that Tamela sent us a while back.

We also recently received a hose cart from Anthony L. which we unveiled today. We can hook it up to the spigot outside:
hose cart

and uncoil the hose all the way into the greenhouse for our daily cleaning of that area:
hose to greenhouse, J.B.
(hey, you can see two of the new climbing structures on Young’s Hill in this photo!)

Thanks to everyone who has given us so much over the last 2.5 years. Like I said, the Cle Elum Seven have the best supporters out there!

New benches! + What’s with all the reassurance?

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J.B. has already applied his new welding skills by fabricating two new awesome benches for the playroom. Thanks to Barb from Ohio for aiding in the project by “adopting” J.B. and purchasing the workshop heater from our amazon.com wish list.

The video below mentions reassurance, which is really common among chimpanzees. This simplifies what can be complex behavior, but, in general, asking for reassurance can be a submissive or peacekeeping behavior, or it can be a way to ask, “are you on my side?” Giving reassurance can be saying, “everything’s okay between us” or “yep, I’ve got your back.”

In the first instance in the video, Jamie is submitting to Burrito and Burrito accepts her submission by doing a quick arm over gesture as he runs by. Looking at this 2 sec interaction in isolation, you might suspect that Burrito was dominant to Jamie, but looking at their interactions overall, that’s not the case. It could be that Jamie just wanted to acknowledge Burrito’s display but let Burrito know she wasn’t interested in starting any trouble with him, so she could get to work looking for food.

In the second instance in the video, Foxie is being submissive to Negra, probably not because Foxie thinks that Negra is going to start something, but because Foxie is respectful of those who are higher ranking and often plays the role of peacekeeper, keeping the group calmer by giving reassurance to whoever seems excited.

Chimpanzees are a bit tightly wound in general, and a high arousal situation such as a great food forage can quickly turn into a fight. So, in any high arousal situation, chimpanzees will be doing a lot of asking for and giving reassurance, even if the situation is a happy occasion. Sometimes the exchange of reassurance is more just a sharing in the excitement of the moment than a submissive or dominant behavior.