Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

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Happy Birthday, Vicki!

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Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by Mary Horton and family in honor of their mother, Vicki Fagerlee, for her birthday! Vicki is such a wonderful friend to the chimpanzees and we’re thrilled to celebrate her birthday here today! Mary shared this message about this gift in honor of her mom:  “There is nothing she would like better for a birthday gift than to help out the chimps.”

Mary and family, thank you so much for your generous and compassionate gift for the chimpanzees and Vicki! It’s easy for us to say perhaps, but when you look into the beautiful eyes of these seven amazing chimpanzee people it’s clear that the gift of sanctuary means everything to them. And as such, it does to us as well.

Vicki, we are so happy to have had the opportunity to meet you recently and are thrilled to have you as part of our chimp family! From our hearts, thank you for embracing the chimps, welcoming them into your life and making their lives better at every opportunity. All of the primates here wish you the happiest birthday yet! We hope your day is filled with all the love, comfort and joy you provide the chimps with, and I suspect so many others as well.

Burrito:

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Foxie:

Foxie side glance

Jody:

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Jamie:

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Negra:

Negra close-up

Annie:

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Missy:

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The Boss Goes Solo

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Jamie is one of the bossiest people I’ve ever met. She holds the alpha position here at the sanctuary, but even for a dominant chimpanzee, she is a force to be reckoned with. She runs a tight ship; both the humans and the other chimpanzees at the sanctuary know better than to get on her bad side. After decades of powerlessness in research labs, Jamie seems determined to have things her way for once.

But Jamie is not a confident leader by any means. In fact, it seems to be her insecurity that causes her to overcompensate. She would probably earn a lot more genuine respect from the other chimps if she loosened the reins a little.

One of Jamie’s most important jobs as boss is to make sure her home is safe from intruders. She knows every time a volunteer arrives for a shift. She knows every time the UPS truck pulls up. She knows what the neighbors are doing.

Like her wild counterparts, Jamie goes on patrol regularly to check the perimeter of her habitat. She does this anywhere from twice to over a dozen times a day. She almost always requests that a caregiver go with her; she seems to just like the company, but it’s also likely that she’s a little nervous to go alone.

Lately, though, we’ve seen Jamie braving it on her own more and more. While we will always love walking with her, nothing beats seeing a strong, determined chimpanzee slowly become a strong, determined, confident chimpanzee.

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Autonomy and Confidence

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Last month I wrote about “missing chimpanzee” Foxie, who has been doing a lot of solo exploring on the hill this summer. In May, Anna shared that Negra had been venturing out further on Young’s Hill than she had ever been before.

Well, we can add Burrito to this growing list of chimpanzees who have suddenly become more confident in the outdoor habitat.

As I was finishing up a walk with Jamie this afternoon, I came around to the front of the building and noticed the figure of a chimpanzee way up on the towers at the top of the hill. To my surprise, it was Burrito who was up there, walking across the shaky bridge, all by himself. I should mention that there was no food forage involved, so his motivation wasn’t tied to finding a snack.

I rushed up to the observation deck and got a few photos as he climbed down from the lookout and slowly walked back toward the greenhouse:

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As I took these photos, I was grinning like a fool, and I called down to Burrito to tell him how great I think he is.

Like humans, chimpanzees experience varying degrees of anxiety and fear. In some ways, Burrito shows more anxiety than some of the other chimpanzees. It took him a long time to get comfortable in the greenhouse when it was first completed in 2010, even when the ladies were spending the majority of their time out there (read this blog post from Elizabeth from March 2010 and watch the video of Burrito finally making a breakthrough and spending some time in the greenhouse).

And now, this summer, five years after the chimpanzees were given the 2-acre outdoor habitat that we call Young’s Hill, they are still continuing to gradually embrace and explore their autonomy.

I wonder what they will be doing five years from now.

 

Happy Birthday, Michael!

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Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by Arlene in honor of her husband, Michael, for his birthday! Arlene and Michael do so much to give the chimpanzees the lives’  they deserve and have been a part of our chimp family for awhile now and we couldn’t be happier to celebrate with them today! Arlene shared this special message about today:

“I would like to sponsor today in honor of my husband, Michael’s, birthday. I am blessed to share my life with him. He is a generous and compassionate person. Michael loves animals, and is a fan of the Cle Elum Seven. He goes above and beyond to help others and make life better for everyone he can. That is why this is a perfect gift for him. I hope that someday we can visit the sanctuary and meet everyone there in person.”

Arlene, thank you to both you and Michael for holding the chimps in your hearts and including them in your lives. To think they lived so many years virtually unknown and unacknowledged for the special individuals they are is unimaginable, especially as we now watch their chimp family and all the love that surrounds them continue to grow and expand. From our hearts, thank you for making that possible for them.

Michael, we wish you the happiest of birthdays and years ahead! To live your life with kindness first is such a gift to others in so many ways and we are so glad to know you are in the world. We hope your day of celebration if full of all the wonderful gifts in life that you help provide for others. Happy Birthday!!

Burrito is always ready for a party. And pumpkins…

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and chow…

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and apples…

Burrito eating apples

and well, you get the idea. And just being adorable…he can’t help it, he was born that way.

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What We Do For Love

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If you want to be a chimpanzee caregiver, it’s best to leave your pride at the door. We find ourselves doing all kinds of ridiculous things to entertain the chimps. Foxie thinks it’s hilarious to pass us one of her dolls and watch us dance.

Chimpanzee-Caregiver Interactions

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For everyone’s safety, humans have very little physical contact with the chimpanzees at the sanctuary. We are always separated by caging, chimp-proof glass, or electric fence. Staff and a select group of volunteers who have gone through extensive safety training are permitted to have what we refer to as protected physical contact with the chimps. Here are just a few of our safety rules outlined in the training packet for Level III volunteers (the only volunteers permitted to interact with the chimps):

Never let your fingers or any other part of your body penetrate the caging.

Never lean on the caging with any part of your body.

Never put yourself in a position where a chimpanzee is able to pin or grab you. Pay attention to where your body is in relation to the caging at all times. Remember that the chimpanzees can grab clothing, hair, hoods, scarves, shoelaces, etc.

Never take your eyes off the chimpanzee you are serving or interacting with. At the same time, use your peripheral vision to monitor all other nearby chimpanzees.

We consider the chimps our friends, but they are wild animals, and they are powerful and unpredictable. We take these, as well as our many other, safety rules very seriously. In this video you’ll a see a few of the different types of contact interactions that trained caregivers have with the chimpanzees.

We Like What We Like

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Jamie spent her childhood living in a human home, and like all chimps who begin their lives in human homes, she quickly grew too strong and unmanageable. Jamie was sold to a research lab when she was about nine years old, and spent the next 22 years in hepatitis vaccine trials and possibly other invasive studies.

Jamie is one of the lucky ones. When she was 31, she was “retired” from research and moved to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Chimpanzees who have lived with and around humans often pick up human habits and interests – Jamie files her nails, ties knots, and loves (and sometimes wears) boots. Jamie is different from the chimpanzees you see behaving like humans in movies and on TV; those chimps are trained – brutally – to perform and are often duct-taped into their clothes. At the sanctuary, Jamie chooses the objects she likes from the various enrichment items we provide each day and she does what she wants with them: nests with them, plays with them, ignores them, destroys them, or wears them.

A few days ago we had a visitor whose beautiful boots Jamie was clearly obsessed with. In a moment of overwhelming generosity, our visitor left Jamie the boots she came in with and walked out of the sanctuary barefoot. Jamie couldn’t resist giving her new boots a test run.

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