Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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The power of the fort

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“Where did Jamie go?” Those are four words you never really want to utter. But if you know where Jamie is, and she thinks you don’t know where she is, then the fun begins.

Jamie loves to build fort-like nests surrounding herself with all manner of things. Her kitchenette, a barrel, a shopping cart, whatever strikes her fancy. And occasionally she builds them with the pretty clear intention of having some privacy and taking a timeout from everyone. Something we can probably all relate to and of course, who doesn’t love a good fort?

After lunch the playroom was particularly quiet and while we assumed everyone was tucked away somewhere napping, I couldn’t see Jamie. Then I just caught a slight motion of blankets being spun into a nest behind this barrel:

In these instances, Jamie seems to take particular satisfaction in our seeming inability to see her. She grows very still as we call for her and occasionally slowly peeks around the corner at us when she thinks we cannot see her. We get it. So we just go along. I mean imagine living with six family members day in and day out, not to mention a variety of humans hanging around all day. Who wouldn’t need some privacy? Hence, the power of the fort.

Negra Time

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Negra isn’t featured on the blog as much as some of the other chimpanzees because she’s often not part of “the action” at the chimp house (unless it’s spring and she’s outside eating grass – we can’t wait for those days!).

Negra seems to prefer solo quiet time. She also spends a lot of her time high up where it’s not as easy to get good photos and video.

And she operates on her own schedule. While the rest of the group might eagerly line up by the raceway in the morning to get the first pick of the snow, Negra instead chooses to go back to bed.

But then, an hour or so later, we’ll see her with some snow of her own – maybe she ventured out and retrieved it herself, or many she convinced one of her friends to hand over some of their haul (she can be very convincing). Either way, she doesn’t miss out on what each day has to offer, she’s just on Negra Time.

There’s more than one way to remove snow

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Good thing it keeps snowing because it’s incredible how much snow these chimpanzees eat! Given Annie’s tactic, she must be immune to freeze brain:

Meanwhile outside, in a turn of events, it was Jody who marched out onto the hill while good friend, Foxie, stayed behind and watched after her:

It’s still snowing

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February appears to be making up for lost winter time. Our relatively mild season so far has suddenly found us in the midst of weeks of below freezing days and nights and inches upon inches of snow. The chimpanzees still have access to their outdoor habitat during the day if they choose to, but they all seemed more than content to stay within the warmth of the chimp house playroom and front rooms. That doesn’t mean they have been busy all day though and really, they like to do most of the same things we humans do on snow days. Eating, having a little fun with snow, staying cozy and taking naps, hanging out with friends, drinking warm tea, creative projects, playing, reading…

Jody enjoyed several blankets warm from the dryer to take an after breakfast snooze while we cleaned the playroom:

We continued the snow snack sculptures which the chimps visited throughout the day.

Jody:

And in between all of her folio projects, Jamie took some time to enjoy her current favorite read, “Dwell” magazine:

Continued construction progress

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We have a lot of people to thank for helping us work on this important stage. As you may already know, staff caregivers operate the chimpanzees’ current doors using a remote controlled pneumatic lever system. In our new Phase 1 chimpanzee area, we will be using a hydraulic door operating system. As you can watch in the above video, we got to see the first door in motion this morning!

To get this first door up and moving, Ozzie from Spencer Fluid Power donated a hydraulic power unit to the sanctuary. Gary and his team from Sage Mechanical donated and installed all of our hydraulic pipe, fittings and covers. The actual doors were given to us last winter by Central Washington University before the former Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute building was demolished. Here’s JB’s post about it from February 2018. We are so grateful to all the members of our community who have been so willing to donate their time and money to helping with this exciting expansion project. We can’t wait to Bring them Home!