Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
A little wind didn’t stop Burrito’s group from enjoying a lunch forage on Young’s Hill today.
Jody was the first one to bring her bounty back to the greenhouse. She efficiently collected her peppers and cucumbers before hustling inside to eat her meal:
Missy inhaled many Roma tomatoes before settling down to savor her cucumber:
Burrito and his armful:
Foxie likes a good cucumber:
Annie looking for primate chow:
Negra, a mouthful of chow and a sea of green:
Are you superstitions? New World Encyclopedia says: “The earliest superstitions were created as a way to deal with the ignorance and fear of the unknown. Chance misfortunes could be ascribed a cause, and the potential to avoid or control them was created. Superstitions are thus a way of attempting to regain control over events, particularly when one feels helpless.”
I wouldn’t say we are superstitious at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, but we are careful about saying how successful the integration is going. I guess you could say we don’t want to jinx anything. Anna pointed out a quote from Michael Scott on The Office that describes us best in our current situation: “I’m not super stitious, but I am a little stitious.” Recently, I find myself knocking on wood if I say the 9 are doing well, just in case something goes wrong. Which is why a recurring phrase you have/will hear from us for a long time is: We are cautiously optimistic! We don’t know what the future holds for these 9 chimpanzees, but for now things are looking up and we are just a little stitious.
I wanted to capture some photos of the 9 grooming and playing, but they were all doing those things in hard to reach places. However, I was able to capture a few individual photos today!
Dora peacefully napping:
Lucky:
And Willy B admiring his own reflecting:
Today is also Wish List Wednesday!! We recently just updated the wish list!
For today’s blog post, I’m sharing this video of Dora being casually goofy with caregiver Grace.
Enjoy!
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P.S. I apologize for the title pun. I don’t even like that song.
Missy couldn’t resist poking Burrito in his little belly…
Negra was quick to investigate these Frisbee puzzles when we hung them in the greenhouse this afternoon. If an enrichment item involves peanut butter, Negra is first in line!
I wanted to share a fun little story from this morning! As I gave Annie’s group Young’s Hill, everyone including Negra rushed out. Once Anna brought breakfast out to the greenhouse all the chimps were heading back in to eat, except Annie. We couldn’t find Annie anywhere. It had been more than 10 minutes of breakfast being served and she was nowhere in sight. Annie does not miss a meal! Sofia came over to help do checks when I said I think Annie is on the Hill, but we can’t see her anywhere. Sofia told us she did this yesterday, but eventually came back for breakfast. We finally got a glimpse of her 15 minutes into breakfast, she was far up on the top of the Hill foraging for what I assume was grass or some kind of foliage. Apparently, that grass was so good she didn’t even come back for breakfast! Breakfast was not a concern for Annie, because when she finally returned and Anna tried to call her over for food, she very contently laid back on the platform in the greenhouse and took a little nap.
Today was a beautiful spring day so we took advantage of the weather and did a Hill forage for lunch!
Don’t worry Annie got plenty of food!
But Missy seemed to score the most!
Negra was quite pleased with her haul! She even worked pretty hard for her food too, look at Neggie on the Esher structure!
Jody with a mouth full of corn and hands full of forage!
Jamie collected her forage and then took all of it to a secluded hammock to eat alone.
Burrito cradling an arm full of onions:
Little Foxie was having a great day roaming around the Hill and hanging out with friends!
Bonus Photos!
Rayne was asleep in a cozy nest up on one of the leaves in the Marmot Room.
And sweet Dora was hangout in the window ledge watching her caregivers cleaned her playroom.
Mave is currently living her best life. She seems to thrive in a larger group with more chimpanzees to interact with and look after. These last few days, she’s virtually never alone.
The video above is of a very fun play session between Mave and Rayne, but the blog post title is more about these two stories…
You may remember from a blog written by J.B. entitled “It’s Only Natural” that Terry and Dora are the only two chimpanzees who express a certain natural behavior. We know from their former caregivers at Wildlife Waystation that they haven’t always done this – they did it for a while, stopped for a very long time, then started again in recent years. Terry only requests that Dora mate when food is brought out for meals. Yep, food is VERY exciting for chimpanzees. From our observations so far, Dora is not always in the mood for Terry’s advances, but she eventually gives in to his requests.
Enter Dora’s new friend Mave.
Mave, apparently, is not willing to tolerate Terry’s behavior and will not only yell at Terry if she catches him requesting Dora to copulate, but will physically “protect” Dora. Chad wrote up the first instance of this the other day. To quote Chad, “Mave began screaming at Terry, and blocked Dora from him via hugging her.” She apparently spent the rest of lunch guarding Dora while also trying to reconcile with Terry. At that point, Terry was more interested in lunch. He did reassure Mave that all was okay, and did not make another attempt that day.
We’ll have to see how this plays out in the end, but I can tell you that the female humans at the sanctuary were feeling a certain feminine solidarity with Mave.
The second story is from last night when everyone was getting ready for bed. I was watching on the remote security cameras. Every night prior to last night, Mave, Willy B, and Honey B have slept in one of the Front Rooms while the six chimpanzees from the other group spread out among the two playrooms.
Last night, Cy was still up taking some alone time (or so he thought) in the Mezzanine. I watched as Mave gathered some blankets from the Marmot Mountain Playroom. I expected her to take her large pile of blankets through the Mezzanine and down through the door in the floor that connects to the Front Rooms. What she did instead was make a nest right in the “cubby” of the Mezzanine, blocking the door that connects it to Marmot Mountain. She made a beautiful nest and lied down.
A few minutes later, Cy approached where she was lying down. It was clear to me that he wanted to vacate the Mezzanine. Mave, however, remained lying down, not moving a muscle. He got a little closer and patiently waited again. Still no movement from Mave. After about ten minutes, he climbed over her to get out the door. She still didn’t move.
Mave is a female figure that we all can admire. She’s a friend to everyone but is strong and confident in her position.
If you haven’t already, I suggest you celebrate Mave by getting a Mave hoodie. I will wear mine with even more pride and admiration now.
