Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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hierarchy

Chimpanzee Dynamics – It’s Complicated

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As I was putting together videos for today’s blog, some playful moments between Foxie, Jamie, Burrito and Negra, I realized they presented a nice moment to highlight the complicated intricacies of chimpanzee politics and friendships. We have observed a lot of complicated and sometimes downright confusing moments as we have undergone the reintroduction process with the group of 9, constantly looking to understand their relationships and dynamics to determine next steps, but “it’s complicated” can be applied even in long-standing groups of chimpanzees like Jamie’s group.

Chimpanzees can be brutal. They fight and injure each other, and being low ranking within the group hierarchy can be a tough role to fill. Lower ranking individuals endure more stealing of things like food from higher ranking individuals, usually don’t get first access to the most exciting items (like more novel or high-value foods or enrichment), and can become the recipient of redirected aggression during conflicts within their group even when they weren’t initially involved because they are an “easy” target. Maintaining status as a high-ranking individual isn’t easy either, and depending on the individual and their strategy for maintaining status in their group, they may put themself in harm’s way more frequently in attempts to maintain or improve their rank. An example of this in action could be Willy B displaying and hitting Lucky as part of a dominance display, which then results in many chimps chasing and hitting at Willy B.

Chimpanzees are also capable of remarkable forgiveness and reconciliation, and form meaningful relationships that shape not only their own lives but greatly impact the lives of those around them as well. While the moments of fighting, aggression, and tension can feel very big for us as the humans caring for them, the chimpanzees are often quick to overlook another’s transgressions, and spend time grooming and playing to ease tension and build relationships. Being high-ranking is often not as simple as who is the biggest, strongest, or fastest. Relationships with the other chimpanzees can highly influence where an individual falls in the hierarchy, as friendships can translate to having support during conflicts (or a lack of support), and can limit or expand an individual’s aspirations for higher rank.

I say all that to say, witnessing moments of play between high-ranking and often imposing Jamie and low-ranking Foxie is all the sweeter when you recognize the complexities of their relationship. While Jamie can be intimidating and domineering, they can still find common ground and enjoy moments of play. Burrito and Negra too have a complicated relationship – they have a standing play time each day as they wait for us to finish cleaning their playroom, but Negra is also often a target for Burrito when he feels the need to display. While there are moments of tension, they enjoy many more moments of play and companionship. Being a chimp is just plain complicated!

Where are the humans in the hierarchy?

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Today, former staff member Anthony gave away a morning off to volunteer. If you were a fan of Anthony and his blog writing while he was on staff, you know that he had a certain fondness for Honey B, and she certainly reciprocates the sentiment – she’s always excited to receive a visit from her old friend.

Honey B is a chimpanzee who is very demonstrative – you can tell when she’s happy and you can definitely tell when she is mad.

I was sharing a story with Anthony about something that happened just the other day. I was sitting outside of the caregiver house where J.B. and I live when J.B. went up to see the chimpanzees for the first time after being away for two weeks. The house is not far from the chimp house, but it’s not right next door either. I’m not great at estimating distances, but I would say if were in in a city, the two buildings would be about a half a block away. When I heard an excited (and very loud) pant hoot coming from the chimp house, I knew exactly who was emitting the sound and why. Honey B had spotted J.B. and they were greeting each other as though they had been apart for a year.

This story led to Anthony and I talking about Honey B, Honey B’s preference for men, and the hazing that she does with some people, the results of which look like this:

For reference, if you don’t remember or haven’t seen the above photo before, that would be Krissy adorned with a mouthful of breakfast smoothie, care of benevolent Ms. B.

J.B. and I were trained that the humans who care for chimpanzees in captivity should consider themselves at the bottom of the chimpanzees’ hierarchy and should act accordingly, with proper deference and subservience. We have carried through a similar philosophy to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. However, you can read this blog post from several years ago about the complications of trying to place dominance in a linear line. Considering the social primates that chimpanzees are, an interesting question to ponder is what they themselves perceive in terms of the status of the humans within their social sphere, both in relation to themselves and amongst the humans as our own separate troop.

Honey B is known, probably even for a casual blog reader, for her mischievousness and her ability to state, in no uncertain terms, that she very much does, indeed, have a level of power over the lowly humans who look after her. I know from experience with chimpanzees I have known previously that it can be quite humbling to be put in this position, a mere peon relegated to the outer circle of affection. In truth, though I am not of her favored gender and are therefore not greeted with the same level of exuberance, Honey B seems to have placed me in her personal hierarchy above those who regularly receive her ire (THANK YOU, HONEY B!).

Honey B is not the only chimpanzee at the sanctuary who treats humans differently based on what appears to be either an internally-decided or an externally-perceived ranking. For those of us who knew Lucky when she first came to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, we couldn’t have envisioned a chimpanzee with such a demeanor sweeter than hers.

As soon as we began training new staff and volunteers, however, another side of sweet Lucky came out that was quite a surprise. When I asked Krissy (the most recent trainee on door shifting) how she would describe this side of Lucky, Krissy replied, “out for blood.”

Lucky will jump at the mesh towards those who she deems below her. She will try to poke them, and she will vocalize her unhappiness if they do something displeasing to her, which is almost always the caregiver attempting to do something quite nice, like give her some food.

I don’t begrudge this side of Lucky or any other chimpanzee. I bet Krissy will be moving up in the ranks as soon as another poor human initiate comes along that is more deserving of Lucky’s scorn, and Krissy and Lucky’s relationship will be all the more precious for it.

As for Honey B, I’m not willing to wager.

 

The Rules of Food

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Today I got two decent photos of two chimps in two separate groups. Willy B and Jamie. My mind started to ponder the question, what do these two have in common? As it turns out, one pretty major thing stands out.

They’re both EXTREMELY food-motivated. They rule meal times with an iron fist, often trying to dominate their group mates and intimidate their way into getting extra food. They’re usually first to enrichment food puzzles and have a way of making sure they get access to them as much as possible. For example, we’ve seen Willy B collect all the chopstick “tools” used for getting food out of certain puzzles. This is his crafty way of ensuring he has first dibs on the treats. Jamie on the other hand, has a domineering presence about her. Annie and Foxie (low ladies on the totem pole) know to steer clear of her during meals.

Food dominance is widespread within chimpanzee groups and these dominance trends are seen throughout both groups at the sanctuary, not just with Willy B and Jamie. A common hierarchy we see is between Missy and Annie.  Even though Missy and Annie are BFFs, some tension still comes between them during mealtimes, with Missy wanting her food served first and Annie seeming uncomfortable if she is served close to Missy.  On the other side of the coin, Negra knows she can always get Missy to give up some of her food if she whimpers dramatically and holds out her hand. Missy knows it’s time to pay the queen.

Annie, Missy and Jamie:

Usually male chimps are more dominant to female chimps, but no one told Mave this rule.  She has been known to chase Gordo around, demanding he give up some of his food. Meanwhile, Willy B isn’t afraid to assert his dominance over Mave.

Mave:

While food hierarchy among chimpanzees is completely normal, it’s also up to us caregivers to help mitigate some of the aggression and to make sure everyone gets to eat. We give as many options as we can for locations for the chimps to eat and try positive reinforcement stationing techniques to encourage the more dominant chimpanzees to stay in their designated places during mealtime. Meals are often served directly to each chimp so we can monitor and make sure they are able to generally eat their entire available portions.

For forages, we cut up the food in many pieces and spread it as far as possible around their enclosures. It’s important to find a balance and not do too many forages because the hierarchy is always present and affects the quantity and types of food each chimpanzee has access to.

Food is one of the most enriching aspects of the chimpanzees’ day to day lives. It makes it that much more important that we are careful with its delivery.

Superhero

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Two things to note before you watch the video below:

  • The video shows the chimps fighting. If that’s not your cup of tea, we understand.
  • If you choose to watch, you must do so with the sound on so you can hear the narration that attempts to explain some of what you will see. The chimps will be loud at first but we’ll turn down the volume on the screaming and pant-hooting early on in the video.

Showing the chimps in your care fighting may not be what they teach in nonprofit PR/fundraising school, but I’m always hopeful that people can learn to understand and appreciate chimps as they are while continuing to support them and the sanctuaries that care for them. Sanctuary life is filled with fun, happy moments. To a lesser extent, it also contains unsettling, even terrifying moments. They are still chimps, after all.

As I mention in the video, we are often of two minds in this job. First and foremost, we are caregivers, fretting over each bump and scrape the chimps receive and agonizing over every decision we make with regard to their care. This is the mind we inhabit in the midst of a conflict. But we are also primatologists and enthusiastic observers of chimp behavior. We are the people that, like many of you, were glued to Jane Goodall documentaries as kids and who find the complexities of chimpanzee social dynamics endlessly fascinating. And as I watched the footage of this conflict, I felt my 20-year-old self, just entering the field, marveling at each and every interaction. Perhaps you will feel the same.

If by chance you are new to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, this group is the result of the integration of two smaller groups: A group of six, led by Cy, and a group of three, led (mostly) by Willy B. Almost immediately after their integration in 2022, Willy B accepted Cy’s dominance and established himself as the #2. But Willy B does not have Cy’s social skills, and from time to time that can get him into trouble with a few others in the group.

Similar to what is seen in the literature, the rate of conflict in this larger group hasn’t gone down all that much since the initial integration; it ebbs and flows and at times it may even be higher. But the conflicts are shorter and result in fewer injuries (I don’t believe in jinxes, I don’t believe in jinxes, I don’t believe…). This conflict was unlike most in that it lasted a long time; as I say in the video, this is likely because of Gordo’s unique inability to calm down. Prior to the integration of these two groups, Gordo would occasionally get this upset with Cy. Cy, having nearly unlimited patience, would just let himself be chased by Gordo until Gordo eventually wore himself out. But that was a low-ranking male venting at the alpha, who clearly felt no threat to his own safety or status. Here, the relationships between the lower-ranking males is less well-defined. And thus the stakes are higher.

There’s an important caveat that I should mention here: I describe some of what I think I’m seeing, but any time I read a matter-of-fact description about relationships and behaviors as complex as those in chimpanzees, my BS detector starts to go off. Half the time we just don’t know or we drastically oversimplify things. So let me admit that up front. And this, I should add, is with the benefit of instant replay and slow motion—now maybe you can see why we say we don’t always know what happened in real time when the chimps get in fights.

Oh, and another one: Cy gets top billing in this blog post and he certainly has the most influence over the outcome, but boy that Honey B has some guts. And there are so many other interesting interactions that I didn’t touch on, many of which are also influential. Alpha males always get the headlines while the females quietly do much of the work. But this alpha sure did put on a show.

This video also doesn’t include what happened after the fight, which in some ways is the most interesting and important aspect of chimpanzee relationship formation and maintenance.

I could probably go on all day about this so I’ll stop here. Feel free to ask questions!

Who’s in charge here?!

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If you read the recent article about the sanctuary published first in the Pacific NW Magazine of the Seattle Times, you probably noticed that my role was written about in the beginning of the piece. It was a really good article and also explained the founding of the sanctuary and the host of volunteers and other staff who have made the sanctuary possible.

There’s a sentence in there that begins, “Diana and her team…” and that has been making me think about our unique structure here, so I thought I’d explain it and attempt to compare our system to the fluid roles that we also see within the group of chimpanzees.

Before getting to the less interesting human side of things, here’s a little story from today that illustrates the dynamic hierarchy of the chimpanzees:

When I opened the door to give the chimpanzees access to Young’s Hill (their large outdoor habitat) this morning, Jody led a charge up the hill, with Missy and Foxie following:

Jamie, who we refer to as the boss of the group, was nowhere to be seen. I suspected she was keeping a close watch over staff member Anna and volunteers Alan and Jonathan, who were hard at work cleaning the playroom.

Moments later, Annie joined the chimp trekkers. The four quickly disappeared into the grass and bamboo on the hill, Jody still leading the way.

Burrito then started after the group:

Being a male chimpanzee you might assume that he is the default leader – that’s certainly the way it is for chimpanzee groups in the wild. But captivity is not the wild, and male chimpanzees do not automatically take the dominant positions, especially chimpanzees like Burrito who were raised by humans rather than in a chimpanzee family.

If you saw him tear through the playroom with other chimpanzees scattering to get out of his way, though, you would naturally assume he’s got some sort of pull over the group.

After an already hesitant start and with the four females out of sight, he decided to turn back:

playfully stomping as he passed me

Then he awaited the return of the wanderers from the shelter of the greenhouse:

Several minutes passed before I saw Foxie emerge solo, aside from the headless doll she was carrying in her mouth:

I decided to take my leave at that point to check on the cleaning progress and say hello to Jamie, who was indeed watching the human cleaning procession, and Negra, the queen of the group appropriately napping within her throne of blankets.

If you had taken that snapshot of the group, you might assume that Jody was the leader. And perhaps she was in that moment. Chimpanzee hierarchies are not as linear as you might first assume.

In fact, the social network of the seven chimpanzees was studied by Jake Funkhouser, former Central Washington University Primate Behavior and Ecology master’s student and current biological anthropology PhD student at Washington University in St Louis.

To quote from his published Plos One paper, “Our results indicate that the conventional methods used to calculate individuals’ dominance rank may be inadequate to wholly depict the group’s social relationships in this captive sanctuary population.”

And so, I now submit that a similar conclusion could be made about the human roles at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. First, rather than one person in the executive director position, which is more typical of both for-profits and non-profits, J.B. and I currently serve as co-directors, dividing up the various tasks that are required to oversee the daily operation of the organization. Are we then the bosses?

Well, no… like other registered non-profits, our bosses are all of the members of the Board of Directors. So, are they ultimately in charge?

I suppose it depends on the way you look at it. Actually the board and co-directors collectively answer to the donors as a whole, because they/you are who enable the sanctuary to continue to exist. Donors also have some legal avenues to pursue if they feel their donations have not been used to advance the mission of the organization. Okay, so the donors are the ultimate bosses?

Well… being a sanctuary, we consider the chimpanzees themselves to be our ultimate bosses. After all, we are specifically here to serve them.

Then, take a look at our staffing hierarchy – each of the five full-time and one part-time staff members (this includes J.B. and myself), have various duties outside of the chimp house.

As for our chimp house roles, however, we are on equal standing because we rotate days in the role of what we call “lead caregiver.” That means that if I’m “second staff” on a day when Anna is lead, she’s in charge of the chimp house, I defer to her decisions, and I’m here to support her. We have this structure mostly because we’re a small staff (or “tiny sanctuary in Washington” to quote the Pacific NW Magazine article) and rotating the lead role just makes us all able to function and get more done.

I think the structure also directly benefits the chimpanzees because each of us are able to both develop relationships with the chimpanzees and have a say in their care.

We also have a committee made up of board members and outside members called the Direct Care Committee that takes on high-level policy issues specifically related to the medical care and overall well-being of the chimpanzees.

So, who’s in charge of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest?

It really all just depends. But it’s true we definitely are a team. You included.

I am acutely aware of the role of donors right now because of our year-end fundraising, which highlights the largest single donation pledged in the history of the sanctuary (I still can’t believe it!) and our largest fundraising goal ever.

Thank you to everyone who has already given and is rooting for the sanctuary to have many more bosses in various forms in the near future.

The Carrot Saga

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Usually, when we serve the chimpanzees a meal the food disappears right away. With some food items and some individuals, however, the food is not eaten as quickly. This is often the case with Jamie and carrots.

Today, Jamie brought her large carrot from lunch into the playroom. In the process of eating this carrot, several pieces dropped to the floor.

Jamie sitting with carrot

 

It was unclear if these were discarded pieces or if Jamie intended to eat them later:

Carrot pieces up close

 

Missy decided to find out, but she knows Jamie probably better than anyone, so she proceeded with caution. Her first movement toward the carrot pieces turned into grooming Jamie’s hand instead.

Missy reaching for carrot

 

Missy grooming Jamie's hand

 

Several minutes later, she made another very slow move towards the pieces of carrots as Jamie watched:

Missy going for carrot

 

This was Jamie’s reaction:

Jamie fear grimace

 

So Missy immediately reached to groom Jamie to reassure her that she didn’t intend to overstep her bounds and her respect for boss Jamie remains at the highest level:

Missy grooms Jamie's head

Missy reaching for Jamie

 

Jamie responded by reciprocating the grooming, letting Missy know that all was forgiven:

Jamie and Missy groom up close

 

Annie was interested in the carrot saga too, and watched as Missy continued to groom Jamie:

Missy grooming Jamie

 

I kept my eye on things for 20 minutes or so, but I’m not sure how the saga ended. Jamie may have decided to let Missy or another chimpanzees take the pieces she had left, or she may have continued to guard them and ate them herself. This is the delicate treading that we all do with boss Jamie, as J.B. eloquently described in his blog post “The Power of Personality” yesterday.

Jamie laying with carrot

Hierarchy

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Yesterday, during the party, Negra and Jody found themselves eating from the same pinata.

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Negra, being dominant to Jody, decides that she’d rather not share. As Negra pulls the pinata away from Jody, Jody gets upset and begins to just slightly bare her teeth out of fear. Negra then displays a facial expression known as a full open grin. As you can see, her upper and lower lips are drawn all the way back, exposing all of her large and powerful teeth. This is a sign of fear or excitement, and is often seen when social conflict breaks out.

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Jody responds with a full closed grin. Her lips are drawn back like Negra’s, but her jaw is closed. She is upset that Negra has pulled rank, so she goes to Burrito and Foxie for reassurance.

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After being reassured by Burrito and receiving a kiss and a hug from Foxie, Jody returns to Negra, who offers her an extended arm in reconciliation. Jody accepts.

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And the Queen gets the pinata.

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As it should be.

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This is all very similar to the conflict we showed a couple of weeks ago, but in this case all of the behavior was ritualized and no one was harmed in the process. As aggressive as they may be, chimpanzees are also very good at negotiating peaceful settlements to their disagreements. Part of this is due to their dominance hierarchies, which can help predetermine the outcome of smaller skirmishes without the need for fighting.

We mentioned before on this blog how difficult it can be to describe the dominance hierarchy at CSNW. One reason is that these seven chimpanzees had little social experience before coming to the sanctuary. They had to start figuring out how to be chimpanzees when they were already well into adulthood, with no role models to emulate and no culture to absorb – just seven misfits trying to figure things out as they went along.

But another explanation is that the majority of the Cle Elum Seven are female, and in the wild, the hierarchy amongst females is often less linear than it is for males. In some communities, the females seem to be ranked in broad groups rather than by the individual.

I would say that is true for the Cle Elum Seven. It’s clear that Jamie, Negra, Jody, and Burrito are dominant individuals, but among them, it’s not always clear how they are ranked. The hierarchy is complex, fluid, and context-dependent. For example, Burrito’s dominance displays are respected and tolerated by all of the females, but Jamie can steal his lunch with impunity. Jamie gets upset when Jody gets a hold of prized food, but she is not always successful in her attempts to steal it away. Negra always submits to Burrito, but she steals from Jamie and Jody. Honestly, it can get confusing.

Nevertheless, we refer to Jamie as the alpha of the group because she regularly fights for dominance and usually gets her way. Negra, on the other hand, seems to earn respect without trying.

All she wants is her night bags, a quiet nap, and occasionally, someone else’s pinata.