Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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chimpanzees

The Nightbag Ritual & Your Questions About Integration, Again

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Before I get to the brief content of this blog post, I have a question for you, or, rather I have a request for your questions.

Several months ago, I recorded a conversation with Jen Feuerstein about integrating groups of chimpanzees with one another. Before that conversation, I invited blog readers to submit your questions for Jen. Then I made that recording available for a small donation.

I am going to be talking with Jen again in just a few days so that I can follow up with her now that she helped us make the final leap in putting the two groups of chimpanzees together. The group of nine has been together for just over a month, so the timing seems right.

Once again, I am inviting you to submit your questions about the integration process and now also post-integration considerations, worries, and expectations.

Your questions can be general to captive chimpanzees or specific to the integration that we just did. My thought is to add the follow-up conversation to the original video and make the whole thing more widely available for anyone who is interested in watching it (perhaps with a donation suggestion but available for free).

Let me know what you think, and write your questions in the comments to this blog post or send them to me by email at [email protected]. Thank you!!

 

On to today’s musings:

We’ve written about nightbags before. They are the post-dinner packaged treat that we give the chimpanzees. I’ve never met a chimp who didn’t like them.

It’s more than just the food at this point, though.

It’s the ritual.

The crinkling of the paper as your caregiver twists the bag to hand it to you though the mesh.

The cracking open of the bag (however you might choose to get into the contents of your bag – some break the twisted bag in half, others carefully unroll it, open the bag, and reach in).

The immediate gratification of staying right where you are to partake or taking your bag and going to your favorite spot, away from everyone else.

The spreading out on a surface, then sorting with your fingers or lips, or just shaking the contents and pouring the seeds, peanuts, popcorn, and dried fruit right into your mouth (your individual method has been honed to your personal preference over the years).

The finding someone else’s nightbag spot and picking through the leftovers to see if there are any surprise shells with seeds still contained.

All of it is so satisfying.

Just ask Annie:

Or Foxie:

Sanctuary’s Sprouting Seeds

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In their natural habitat, chimpanzees help maintain their ecosystem by helping with the dispersal of seeds. They disperse seeds by either ingesting the fruit or nut and later depositing the seeds elsewhere in their feces, or wadging the seed or nut and leaving it somewhere else in their habitat. Once the chimpanzee leaves the seeds via droppings or wadge, it germinates and a new generation of fruit tree can begin to grow. It is one of the many upon many of reasons protecting wild chimpanzee populations is important. It helps maintain the natural ecosystem.

Seed dispersal can also occur in captivity. Last summer, we had noticed a couple of pumpkin plants growing in the Oakwood Greenhouse. This year is no different. In fact, this years seems like there is more of a variety of plants growing throughout the sanctuary. Some of them can be attributed to the night bags the chimpanzees receive at dinner, while others are a bit more curious. They are sometimes part of the ingredients we use for the chimpanzees’ morning smoothie, and the only way they could have started to grow is by the chimpanzees passing them.

Here are some of the plants growing in the greenhouses (currently):

Pumpkin Plants

In the Riverview Greenhouse.
The biggest one so far is hidden behind bamboo in the Riverview Greenhouse.

Elderberry

Elderberry is sometimes added to the morning smoothies. This seedling is starting to grow in the Riverview Greenhouse.

Blackberry

Blackberries are also sometimes added to the morning smoothies. And this seedling started to grow in an area Jamie’s group is know to defecate.

Sunflower

Notice the pumpkin plant starting to sprout at the root of this sunflower in Burrito’s greenhouse.
In the Oakwood Greenhouse.

It also appears that growing is not exclusive to the greenhouses:

A sunflower sprout growing on one of the artificial leaves in the Marmot Playroom.
And another growing under the door in the Mezzanine.

Though these plants probably won’t grow to their full potential since the chimpanzees will probably root them out at some point, we can only hope they are left untouched and can start growing some fruits/veggies.

Here are some of the seed dispersers today!

Jamie:

Honey B:

Gordo:

Foxie:

Mave and Rayne:

And some photos of our recovering Queen Negra:

Negra has been receiving frequent visits from her group mates all throughout the day. This was during Foxie’s visit.

Negra seems to not mind this set up. She has been staying out of the family politics, been covered in blankets, receiving a lot of attention from the human caregivers…

And yes, Hawaiian rolls!

Guess these Lips!

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Today was very busy in the chimp house, but I thought we could play a game! Can you guess these lips?

Only one rule: don’t scroll down too quickly or the answer will reveal itself!

One hint: he is a handsome devil!

⬇️ Scroll down for the answer! ⬇️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Willy B!

 

Just a Little Stitious

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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!

Where in the World is Annie?

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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.

New Friendships and Lots o’ Play!

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We’ve talked a lot about the introductions of Honey B’s and Lucky’s groups on the blog over the last few months. After opening the last door 12 days ago, we have been watching as they sort out their social dynamics and build the trust needed to be a cohesive group. It is still very early in the process and we cannot pretend to know what the future will bring, but we can have hope! A common phrase heard almost daily throughout the chimp house, along with talking about how proud we are of the 9 chimpanzees, is- so far so good!

Integrating the two groups provides multiple benefits to everyone, with a key benefit being an increase in social partners. Each person now has eight other individuals they can choose to hang out with (or not), which provides increased opportunities for friendship, play, and all the other benefits that can come from having a bigger social group. As they figure out their place in the new social structure, we have been able to watch new friendships form and bonds strengthen. Some of these have been surprising (go, Mave!) and some have been more expected based on previous smaller introductions.

Today, I was able to catch an amazing moment of play between Honey B and Rayne on camera. It was lunchtime, they weren’t at the meal, and when we went looking for them we couldn’t help but smile. 🙂 Check out the video to see why!