Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary for primates.
Being the only male can be hard…
But who could resist this handsome fellow!
Here are a few extra photos…
Missy eating apples on the Hill this morning:
Missy foraging for corn at lunch:
Jody’s loot today:
Negra was really excited about corn:
Annie did pretty well during the lunch forage:
Foxie:
And then there is Jamie (she has been enjoying her new firehose swing):
It was just three weeks ago that we separated Jody from the group in order to stitch an injury to her eyelid. If you didn’t know it had happened, you probably wouldn’t notice that her left eye looks a little different. I suspect in another three weeks even we won’t be able to tell which eye it was.
(Incidentally, when I saw the photo above, I immediately thought of this photo of Jody’s daughter Andrea who lives at Save the Chimps in Florida. Like mother, like daughter!)
Dr. Erin did a great job of the procedure, no doubt. Plus chimpanzees have this uncanny ability to heal very quickly (thank goodness!).
I keep thinking back to the days after the procedure and how each step was an affirmation of why Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest exists and the role of the humans at the sanctuary.
When the injury happened, Jody was clearly irritated that her eyelid was kind of just hanging there (sorry for that graphic image), though she was not irritated enough that she ignored the rest of her lunch. On the contrary, she went right back to eating when the fighting had stopped.
The humans figured out pretty quickly that we needed to fix her eyelid because it serves such an important function of protecting the eye. After a little while, Jody seemed to agree with us, and she did not protest when we invited her to be separated from the other chimpanzees with the doors closing behind her.
I really believe that she knew she needed our help.
It took her the whole next day after the procedure to completely recover from the anesthesia, and she allowed me to sit with her (on the other side of the caging) and offer her sips of water in between her naps.
The day after that, however, she wanted to be back with the other chimpanzees.
We reunited them the next day, but then separated Jody again when Dr. Erin decided she needed some time away from Dr. Missy and any other overly zealous grooming partners.
Though it wasn’t an issue to separate Jody, she was definitely not as content to spend time by herself this time around. She was constantly watching what the group was doing, vocalizing along with them, and hopeful that she would be back with them each time we operated the doors. After a couple more days of healing, there was another reunion, and this time it lasted.
Here’s what I love about Jody’s reaction to all that happened: She accepted our help and let us pamper her a little, but the second she felt even halfway better, she wanted to be with her people. The humans are not her people. She has a family of chimpanzees – they are her people. She’s not related to any of them, but they are her family.
She wanted to be back with them even after sustaining a pretty intense injury during a fight with these same people.
And that explains the role of the humans at the sanctuary. We are protectors and sometimes fixers, up to a point. We make sure that the chimpanzees have food, medical care, and an interesting and comfortable environment.
But the truth is that they need each more than they need us. They have their own lives to lead.
That is one of the reasons why we are working hard on the Bring Them Home Expansion Campaign in order to bring more chimpanzees to the sanctuary. We don’t know how long these seven chimpanzees will be here, but we know that as long as they are alive, they will need a family of other chimpanzees.
For Giving Day for Apes this year, we are highlighting the expansion campaign. We hope you will join in the donating on September 25th to help expand the family at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest and be a part of providing them with what the really need.
Missy came alarmingly close to never making it out of the research lab. She almost died while recovering from a hysterectomy shortly before moving to the sanctuary. Missy is so full of life these days that it’s easy to forget that if things had played out just a little differently, we never would have had the opportunity to get to know and love her. What a loss it would have been.
Missy is who we all want to be. She is fearless, cool, and adventurous. She’s strong and athletic, with a penchant for daredevilry. She has a silly sense of humor and is fiercely loyal to her friends. Though she does on occasion honor us with her attention, she usually prefers chimp company. And that’s fine with us – we’re just glad she’s in our world.
This morning for breakfast we had a forage in the Playroom! Everyone was very excited, food grunts and squeaks filled the whole Chimp House. However, sometimes excitement can turn into displaying. Most times like today the display you will see in the video is short and there is lots of noise and screaming and then everyone goes back to what they were doing before. I thought I might break down Burrito’s body language and behaviors he exhibits in the video before he starts his displaying. You can see that Burrito’s hair starts to get pilo (meaning his hair is standing up and making him look bigger), if you listen to the vocalization you can hear hooting (which sometimes means by the end of the hooting a big eruption will start, screaming, throwing things, etc.) Burrito then stands bipedally and rocks the barrel making noise, which then leads to him throwing the barrel, screaming, and running. This usually can get the girls screaming and mad at Burrito too. However, this is a very typical and normal behavior and today Burrito displayed, got it out of the way and everyone kept foraging!
Sometimes the chimpanzees do something we’ve never seen before. Once in a while we are able to capture it on video!
A few years ago, we began a Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT) program with the chimpanzees here at the sanctuary. (See this post for an introduction to PRT including how it works, why we feel it’s important, and how it improves the chimps’ lives.)
All seven chimps have made incredible strides since we began the program. Some chimps were enthusiastic participants right from the start while others have chosen to take part at their own pace and in their own time.
Negra has always been a little touchy when it comes to, well, being touched. She’s still working on moving past her decades in research labs where she was poked and prodded against her will. Probably for that reason, she wasn’t always a big fan of PRT. She voluntarily participated, but she would be sure to let her caregivers know when she had reached her limit. At the very beginning of the program, she was even scared of the sound of the clicker.
As you’ll see in this video, she’s certainly come a long way…
For those of you haven’t been following the recent Jody eyelid saga, here’s a recap: Last Thursday, Jody’s eyelid was partially detached during a fight in the group at lunchtime. Our incredibly talented, dedicated, and caring vet, Dr. Erin Zamzow, reattached the eyelid with some subcuticular sutures, and Jody stayed isolated from the other chimps for another day or two to give her eye a chance to heal. On Sunday, we reunited Jody with the group, and everyone was so happy to have her back. Maybe a little too happy, because they wanted to spend a lot of time grooming her eye. We didn’t want anyone to undo Dr. Zamzow’s work, so we made the decision to re-isolate Jody the next day. She’s been getting lots of extra blankets and treats, and lots of extra attention from caregivers, but she made it clear that she wanted to rejoin her friends ASAP. This morning we got the okay from Dr. Zamzow to re-reunite Jody with the group. Happy day!
It’s been quite a stressful week for Jody, and she is ecstatic to be back where she belongs. And maybe a little exhausted from her ordeal. After lunch today she drifted off to sleep as Negra gently groomed her back.
