Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
If Negra is the Queen of the Cle Elum Seven, Jody is the Queen of Nest Building and Relaxation.
Jody is hands down the best nest builder I know. She is definitely an artist about it, and will often use as many as 20-30 blankets. We put out tons of new straw and alfalfa hay in the greenhouse yesterday, so Jody forewent the blankets and made herself an amazing nest right on the ground.
Sometimes I feel there is nothing more special than seeing Negra play. And there really couldn’t be a better combo than Negra and goofy Foxie.
(Be sure to watch this video to the very end. It’s hard to see through the caging, but well worth it once you do!)
The grass is turning green, flowers are beginning to bloom and the wind is blowing. I think it’s official- Spring has finally sprung here in Cle Elum!
Even though the chimps don’t enjoy the wind too much, they’ve still been spending more time out on Young’s Hill. Here’s a photo J.B. took the other day of Missy enjoying the view. I just love seeing them in the green grass.
We talk a lot about how Jamie is the boss not only of the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees, but of the humans at the sanctuary too. People ask us what makes her the boss. I don’t know that I’ve ever explained it quite this way before, but I’d say a good 75% of the “why” behind Jamie’s leadership status is that she just knows she should be in charge. I don’t think there’s any question in her mind that she should have a privileged status among all of us.
This entitlement means that Jamie can be demanding. If she’s trying to get our attention in order for us to give her something, she’ll often stand in the loft of the playroom, look into the kitchen and stomp her feet or hit the caging. Today she did this after lunch. Volunteer caregiver Connie and I were the only humans in the building at the time. Connie did her best to try to figure out what Jamie wanted, bringing her out various favorite things like crayons, big container,s and a couple of pairs of boots.
But the boss was not satisfied.
So, we decided to get ALL of Jamie’s boots (even the extras that were in storage) and line them up outside of the front rooms. It’s something that I had tried over a year ago that worked (see that blog post), and we were out of options. I don’t know if this is exactly what Jamie wanted, but she was definitely pleased with our solution. She would point to certain boots and we would hold them up for her. Some of them she seemed to just want to look at, some she wanted to touch, and others she asked us to give her by standing near the chute with her hand in the position to grab a boot that we dropped in (you can see the rectangular hole and the wire mesh chute below in this photo).
This morning, Foxie played a little game on the hill in which she put Dora on top of one of the beams of the climbing structures and played like she was going to push her off. But, Dora was safe in Foxie’s hands, as she always had another hand below to catch her if she fell.
People who have seen Burrito in person often comment that he’s “fluffier” than the other chimpanzees at the sanctuary, and it is an accurate observation. The technical term for this fluffiness is piloerection. A chimpanzee is said to be pilo erect when his or her hair is standing on end due to anxiety or excitement. (Humans also experience piloerection when we get goosebumps, but it’s not as obvious since we have less hair.) When a chimpanzee is completely calm and relaxed, his hair lies flat against his body. Given that Burrito is rarely completely calm — he’s a pretty high-strung guy — it makes sense that he’s very often pilo erect.
I like the following photos because you can see how much of Burrito’s impressive size is body and how much is “fluff”.
Jamie likes to draw with pens and occasionally with crayons, but she’s not much of an artist with paint. She used to paint a lot when she first arrived at the sanctuary (we have some of her earlier pieces for sale in our store), but lately her focus has been more on eating the paint than actually creating something with it. However, volunteer Seana gave her some finger paint yesterday and she created quite the masterpieces!
