Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimpanzee

Sarah on the subject of healing

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A few weeks ago, two very special people from Seattle’s NPR station visited the sanctuary and interviewed Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest’s Executive Director, Sarah Baeckler. The interview and audio from their visit will air on KUOW Presents on 94.9 FM tomorrow at 2:06pm. Please listen to it live if you’re in the area.

You can also listen to it, subscribe to the KUOW Presents podcast, or download the interview from their website right now. It’s a very moving piece, and I hope you’ll be inspired to contact KUOW to comment, and encourage them to re-air it as frequently as they can. You will learn a lot about Sarah in the interview and why she does what she does for chimpanzees.

Self treatment

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Chimpanzees spend a lot of time grooming injuries on themselves and others. In fact, we rely heavily on observation of their behavior towards one another to monitor their health. For example, a chimpanzee may develop a small abscess from a bite or scratch during a fight. Depending on the location of the injury, the caregivers may not notice it at first. But the chimpanzees sure do, and this will often alert us to its presence. And while we tend to be a bit overly cautious and provide oral antibiotics, the chimpanzees do a pretty good job of grooming and draining injuries to promote healing on their own. This makes sense, of course, because free-living chimpanzees often suffer injuries and do not rely on humans for treatment. But it is fascinating to watch. Missy seems to be the most adept at using tools (in this case a piece of grape vine) to groom herself.

Web Missy OA self groom stick 3_MG_5676

Web Missy OA self groom stick 2_MG_5675

Web Missy OA self groom stick 5_MG_5684

Wine tasting (and wine nesting)

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This weekend, CSNW supporters will be enjoying a sampling of some of Washington’s best wines at our Sippin’ for the Seven fundraiser. We didn’t want the chimps to feel left out, so we gave them their own wine tasting, of sorts.

Yesterday, Diana and I took a drive down to Boushey Vineyards in Grandview, WA. Owners Dick and Luanne Boushey were kind enough to allow us to collect vine trimmings for the chimps (thank you!). Today’s trimmings were from French clone Syrah vines – soon we’ll get to see if they prefer Merlot 🙂

Web Jody eating vines OA_MG_5616

Web Jody eating vines 2 OA_MG_5660

Web Annie eating vines OA_MG_5646

In addition to eating the vines, the chimps enjoyed nesting with them…especially Jody, as you might have guessed. This morning, she seemed intent on outdoing her paper nest from last week.

Missy’s Day of Play

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Missy has been especially playful today (even by Missy standards). Jody and Annie have been good about humoring her (as you’ll see in the video), but even during those moments when no one else is up to a game, Missy has found a way to entertain herself. At various times today, we’ve caught her taking a flying leap from the deck outside wearing a huge playface or playing chase with an invisible partner.

Getting there the hard way

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Jamie is the type of person that really enjoys using all of her abilities, both mental and physical. She loves a challenge. If something is too easy, she’ll find a more difficult way of doing it, just for fun.

Sometimes she gets this look in her eyes and you know she’s up to something. You can almost follow her thought process as she looks around and figures out what tools she’s going to need to get the job done, or what series of moves she going to need to do to accomplish her goal.

Here’s a brief example. Jamie wants to move about four feet over to say hello to Denice. And how does she get there?