George and Terry recently had their full day together, they had a rocky start in the morning but after taking a few minutes to cool off they had a great day together!
george
George and Cy: Connecting on The Bray
Introductions are unpredictable. You never quite know what the chimps are going to do, how they’ll react, or how they’ll respond to neighbors making noise (and yes, sometimes the neighbors do heighten the situation). But that’s the point of these meet-ups — to give them the opportunity to work through situations or conflicts and gain more confidence as we build this group, especially for George.
Last Saturday, we did an all day introduction with George and Cy. We wanted to give them more time to work through different scenarios and bond together. Bonding with Cy will be a critical part of this introduction process. Cy is an exceptional leader, and I think he’ll really help show George the ropes, helping him build confidence and engage in typical chimp activities, like grooming. We also want George to understand the hierarchy and recognize Cy as the leader. And what better way to do that than to give them extended time together and introduce them to a new space they’d have to navigate side by side? So, we gave Cy and George access to the chute and The Bray!
We are so incredibly proud of George. He was actually the one encouraging Cy to go out onto The Bray, while Cy seemed a bit apprehensive. Since this was a space they hadn’t shared together before, it caused a moment of uncertainty for Cy. However, George beckoned for Cy to come — and he did! This was a big step for them in bonding and building a friendship. I think Cy has really grown fond of the little guy! As a side note, Cy was also really distracted because he really wanted to hangout in front room 7. It’s his favorite room because you can see so much in the chimp house, Cy hasn’t had access to it in a long time!
The week before, we had tried giving George and Gordo access to the same space, but Gordo, being the cautious soul he is, thought there was a catch and refused to go outside with George. George was so patient and tried hard to encourage him, but Gordo just couldn’t do it. However, as you saw in Tuesday’s blog, Gordo also had an all day introduction with George, and eventually, he found the courage to run out onto The Bray with him.
Setting up introduction days is a lot of work. Behind the scenes, getting the chimps to shift and move where they need to be can be quite challenging. Not everyone is always eager to cooperate (cough, cough — Honey B, Terry, and now Rayne). Sometimes, if the chimps don’t shift, it can really affect the whole day, and we have to get creative with our shifting plans. Mentally, it can be extremely taxing.
However, that makes it all the more rewarding to witness these milestones. George has been alone for over two years since his companion at his previous home passed away. Watching George beckon Cy over and seeing them embrace on The Bray brought tears to my eyes. George has had to explore much of his new surroundings alone, so it strikes a deep chord to see him finally sharing the experience with another chimp. Moments like these really fill our cups and remind us that this is the heart of our work- providing opportunities, offering choice, and fostering meaningful social connections.
The Beat of Willy B
The other morning, as we were cleaning, we could hear a steady beat of drumming. Often, when we hear this, it is the slow start to a display and usually we could put money on a particular “B” being the culprit, that “B” being, Willy B. Other times, we find the noise to be Willy B playing, usually with a box or a slinky, like the blog a few weeks ago! But this time, when we went to investigate, we found Willy B wasn’t displaying; he was playing. While, Willy B was playing with the green tub minding his own business, beating the tub to his own drum. He wasn’t just drumming on the tub, but rather had the large tub over his head and making the drumming noise! It’s always nice to see Willy B having fun!
Bonus photos of George in his nest the other evening!
Goodnight George!
The Hilltop Trio and a Downhill Dash
George has been getting out on the Bray more and now that he’s more comfortable he is out at the same time as Jamie’s group and recently Missy (followed by Jamie) was, seemingly, walking up Young’s Hill alongside George who was in the Bray. Caregiver Kelsi and I stopped everything to go outside and check it out and were able to record some footage of the event.
Don’t forget you can join us online for our HOOT event for pre-show at 6:00 and live broadcast at 6:30 (PT) and we have our online auction going through the weekend!
Go, George, Go!
That George is really something.
George and National Family Day
Tomorrow is National Family Day. It’s really just another made-up day, but it’s hitting home for me because of our newest family member here at the sanctuary, George.
This afternoon, I spent the better part of an hour with him. I had a long paper tube I thought might be fun to play with. I put one end up against the mesh where he was sitting and I passed him a black crayon by angling the tube up and letting the crayon slide down. His lips were waiting to catch it, and he seemed to think it was pretty fun.
Almost immediately, he turned around and dug through a pile of enrichment, pulling out an orange crayon. He proceeded to put the orange crayon into the paper tube, raising up his end so the crayon slid towards me. I gave him a hearty chimp laugh and we continued with some other games, including lots of tickling with a bamboo stick–me tickling him and him tickling me. At one point, he turned around and pressed his bum against the mesh for me to tickle. This is a high compliment from a chimpanzee and a sign of trust, so I was delighted.
We are still learning about George’s past. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to us to share your experiences and knowledge of George from his many years living at West Coast Game Park Safari. Things are moving forward with the charges against the owner of that facility. You can read about that here. This means there could be movement soon that would make George officially a permanent resident of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest rather than living in a state of legal limbo.
For Giving Day for Apes this year, we are telling the story of what we know of his early years. Please take a moment to read about his past on our Giving Day for Apes page and donate now for early giving or save your funds to donate on October 7th when we will be competing for cash prizes.
Legalities and the past aside, George is very much already a part of our sanctuary family.
You know from following the blog that George has embraced this new chapter of his life with surprising confidence, and we look forward to every day with him as he experiences new things, makes chimpanzee friends, and builds trust with his human caregivers.
George is just 21 years old. Nothing is guaranteed, but we hope that he will have more than half of his life ahead of him with our family.
National Family Day is a good excuse to make plans to protect the future of your family. One significant way you can do that is by creating a will. This may not be the first time you’ve read those words from me. Having lost my parents and other family members who fortunately had their affairs in order, while knowing others who have faced more challenging and complicated circumstances, has opened my eyes to how important it is to plan ahead.
That is why I decided to have the sanctuary partner with FreeWill. FreeWill provides a completely free service to help you write your will within 20 minutes. You can ensure your human and non-human family members are taken care and you can even designate beneficiaries for non-probate assets not included in your will.
This is a service for you. Including a gift in your will to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is entirely optional.
Including CSNW as a beneficiary could have a tremendous impact on the sanctuary’s future and establishes a legacy from you that provides home, love, home, and sanctuary to George and chimpanzees like him for years to come, but you can add the sanctuary later, choose multiple charities, or forego that option. It’s all up to you. Just take advantage of tomorrow’s National Family Day and create or update your wishes for the future.
Nesting with George: Part 2
Anna posted a few weeks ago about George becoming more comfortable here at CSNW and starting to take part in normal chimpanzee behaviors such nest building. In the beginning his nests were pretty sparse and made mostly of scraps of paper, boxes and the occasional blanket. More recently George started making much more elaborate nests of blankets and large sheets of paper we offer him as an enrichment item. In the wild chimpanzee’s make a new nest every night so here we do deconstruct their nests daily during our cleaning routine and we make sure they have clean blankets, paper and enrichment items they might like to include in their nests, like boxes, scarves and wooden blocks.
George in one of his first, more elaborate blanket nests. You can see he has a box of enrichment items that we offer all the chimps so they can carry them, play with them and just use the items as they see fit. Sometimes these items even make their way into nest designs, especially with the more experienced nest builders like Negra and Jamie:
In this nest he included some magazine pages:
Here, George opted for a paper base with a blanket over him:
