Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

fire hose

The Many Uses of Fire Hose

by

Nicolas Santos, an 8th grade student at St. Luke School, recently collected fire hose for the chimpanzees. Nicolas’ parents, Erica (a former CSNW board member) and Enjay (a former CSNW volunteer), gathered up the family to help deliver it to the sanctuary.

The response to his project was so overwhelming that they had to rent a U-Haul trailer.

Already, Chad and I have began to hang some of it up in the new greenhouses, which are just weeks away from completion.

By the way – we’re very grateful to the donors who purchased the safety harness and lifeline from our wish list. Look at the view from up top! Just don’t look down.

As Nicolas mentioned in his flyer, chimpanzees use fire hose in a number of different ways.

They walk across it:

They climb across it:


They sit on it:

They swing on it:

They lounge on it:

They…do whatever this is:

Occasionally, they even wear it:

Thanks, Nicolas, for helping us enrich the chimps’ home! Honey B, Mave, Willy B, and the “Lucky Six” are going to love it.

Balancing act

by

Each time we build a new play structure on Young’s Hill, we connect it to nearby structures using fire hose. This allows the chimps to move from place to place without touching the ground, a feature that is particularly handy when that ground is covered in snow. We also shovel pathways for them, but hey, tightrope walking is way more fun.

Their balance is incredible, aided in part by those opposable big toes.

And when they lose their balance, they can always fall back on their superhuman strength.

 

When She’s Not Constantly Moving….

by

When one’s mission in life is to stay in motion, to go from point A to point B, running as fast as one can, climbing everything in sight, exploring new structures and tightrope walking (well, in this case it’s fire hose walking), it can be hard to get good closeup pictures. Do you know which chimpanzee I am describing? I’ll give you a hint, she was one of the chimps featured in yesterday’s blog.

web_missy_closeup_face_look_to_side_gh_kh_img_4491-copy

web_missy_closeup_face_look_to_side_gh_kh_img_4494-copy

web_missy_closeup_face_look_to_side_gh_kh_img_4496-copy

web_missy_closeup_face_look_up_gh_kh_img_4493-copy

web_missy_profile_closeup_face_gh_kh_img_6492-copy

web_annie_groom_missy_leg_bottom_platform_gh_kh_img_6498-copy

If you guessed Missy, then you are right!!

Be sure to stay tuned for the Jamieween celebration (Jamie’s birthday and Halloween combined) happening tomorrow!

The new door

by

On Sunday, the chimps got to use the new door for the first time. We do our best to keep things interesting around here, but the facility itself doesn’t change that often, so the chimps are always very excited and very curious to see the improvements. 

Anytime there is a major change, whether in the social group or in their environment, the chimps like to reassure each other and seek comfort amidst the excitement. You’ll notice a lot of greeting, hugging, and submissive behavior in this video (Foxie kissing Burrito, Jody greeting me with a “genital bounce”, Annie kissing Jody, Annie and Missy submitting to Burrito who is off-camera). 

We serendipitously discovered that the chimpanzees appreciate having fire hoses hanging just outside the door. The hoses were there previously, but once we installed the door, many of the chimps used them to climb from the door up to the the platform outside without setting foot on the wet ground. That’s one of the strange things about caring for ex-lab chimps (any captive chimps, really). Wet ground is a fact of life for free-living chimps, but it can be unpleasant and even terrifying for individuals who have spent a lifetime indoors. We used to place tractor tires outside so that Foxie could use them as stepping stones, but now we’ll have to hang some more fire hose by the other door.

Brachiating and swinging

by

Just a short video of chimps being chimps. Foxie and Missy take turns brachiating across the roof of the enclosure. Then Jamie and Missy play with one of the new fire hose swings around the recently donated culvert. 

My favorite part of the video: When Diana (and the camera) get hit with a flying troll. It’s an occupational hazard here at CSNW!