Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

introduction

Lucky Seven

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As some of you may have noticed in J.B.’s blog last Monday, we added Gordo into the intro group! With Gordo joining the group, that left Dora as the final remaining member. While Gordo adjusted to his new group, Dora and Mave spent the entire week together so Dora wouldn’t be alone, because nothing is better than a little getaway with a friend.

As of this Monday, we took the final leap and officially added Dora to the group. So far, things have been going smoothly. Throughout the few days they have been together, Dora and George have shared some really lovely small moments together. In fact, as I write this, I just watched Dora approach George and offer brief reassurance after the group had a minor disagreement.

Of course, this is only the beginning, and where the real work begins. Now that everyone has been added to the group, they’ll need time to figure out their dynamics and learn how to navigate conflict together. Still, I think it’s incredibly important to celebrate the wins, big or small.

When I reflect on the George I met in May, I still can’t quite wrap my head around how brave George really is. Coming to a new place, meeting new caregivers and volunteers, exploring new enclosures and outdoor spaces, and then joining a group of chimps! George has accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. I truly don’t think there are words that can express how proud we are of him, but I am in utter awe of how courageous this little chimp is!

The Paper Dilemma

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We continue to make progress in introducing George to Cy’s group. This past week, George spent the day with Lucky (and Cy). As George navigates living with other chimpanzees, he is also learning that sometimes, he might have to share. See today’s blog video to watch how Lucky and George (with help from Cy!) navigated a conflict over their shared love of paper, and how they spent the rest of their day together.

Don’t forget, Willy B’s birthday is just around the corner! He’ll be turning 35, and will be celebrating with as many of his favorite bouncy toys as we can provide him with. If you’d like to purchase a bouncy toy for Willy’s birthday, see our chewy and Amazon wish lists, and look for the Ruff Dawg toys!

Role Models

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One of the reasons why we chose to introduce George to Cy’s group, at least to start, is that he needs some good role models. Having lived alone or with only one other chimpanzee for most of his life, he never had the opportunity to fully develop his social skills. And that can have serious consequences. Failure to follow the rules of a social group can get a chimp into trouble pretty quickly, especially when entering the group alone. We love Jamie and Willy B as people, but as leaders of their respective groups, they each leave a lot to be desired. They might be tough, but they are also insecure, capricious, and generally self-interested. I have a hard time imagining either of them sticking their neck out to defend a naive newcomer like George.

Cy and Rayne, on the other hand, are exemplars of true leadership. In addition to being tough, they are also kind, fair, tolerant, and forgiving. One way to think about the process that George is going through right now is that this is his chance to make mistakes. I hate to see him get in scuffles or to be in distress, but I can’t help thinking to myself: Screw up now George, it’s only going to get more difficult from here! We want him to offend Rayne when Rayne gets to decide how to respond, and not Rayne trailed by four other screaming chimps. We want him to learn about the privilege of dominance, and the price paid for disrespect, when Cy is the one doing the teaching.

George has proven himself to be up for the challenge of learning to be a chimp—as long as he keeps paying attention to his teachers.

Allow Ourself to Introduce Ourself

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It is no secret that our humble little sanctuary has garnered a sudden influx of followers on our blog and social media in the past few months as we welcomed George. We are thrilled so many people are enthused that George has found his way into our care. Since there are so many great new followers who regularly check up on George and the rest of the chimpanzees and cattle, I would like to informally introduce ourselves to the new crowd.

George with a KONG filled with peanut butter

First off, a little background history. Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest was founded in 2003 by founder Keith LaChapelle after he read an article about the plight of chimpanzees used in biomedical research and his desire to help create a space for those who deserved a home free from fear and intrusive testing. This of course expanded beyond only chimpanzees from the labs and to all captive chimpanzees, those used in entertainment, as roadside attractions, and former pets.

Negra eating her breakfast chow while watching the others explore Young’s Hill

In 2008, CSNW welcomed Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy, and Negra, known as the Cle Elum Seven, to their new Pacific Northwest home from a laboratory/breeding facility in Pennsylvania called Buckshire. Over a decade later, in 2019, Honey B, Mave, and Willy B arrived from Wildlife Waystation, a facility in Southern California that was closed after losing their permit to keep wildlife. Two years later, as part of the North American Primate Sanctuary Alliance’s Chimpanzees In Need campaign to rehome the remaining 39 chimpanzees at Wildlife Waystation, CSNW rescued Cy, Dora, Gordo, Lucky, Rayne, and Terry, known as The Lucky Six. Early this year, we welcomed George, who was confiscated from West Coast Game Park Safari, a roadside zoo in Oregon. We also rescued Betsy, Honey, Meredith, and Nutmeg, four cattle used in the dairy industry and stars of a Fox Network reality show called “Utopia,” in 2018.

Betsy in the summer pasture

Every resident here, whether chimpanzee or bovine, is allowed to live their life they want given their predicament. That predicament, particularly in the chimpanzees’ case, is a harsh fact: they will never know what unadulterated freedom is. Due to their upbringing and individual past histories, they will never know what life would have been like to live in the jungles and savannas of their native African Continent. They will never know the experience of being brought up by their natural families where they would have learned the skills needed to navigate and survive life. It is this predicament that makes truly re-releasing chimps back into the wild a pretty futile attempt.

This is why we, and other accredited sanctuaries housing chimpanzees, provide as much choice as possible. Whether it’s staying inside on what we would consider a perfect day, or running around in less than optimal weather conditions like rain or snow, that choice is theirs. Though from time to time you may see individuals wear human clothing, we do not force them to. We simply provide them with an option, sometimes clothing and toys, and they are free to use or disregard as they see fit. Just a few examples (of many) include Jamie, Foxie, and George.

We aren’t certain of the origins of Jamie’s love for footwear, specifically cowboy boots, but we do allow her to indulge in this near obsession to her heart’s content by providing her several pairs for her to choose from to carry around with her and have caregivers wear during a parameter walk around Young’s Hill, one of the two 2-acre outdoor enclosures here.

Jamie with a cowboy boot

When Foxie arrived at the sanctuary from the lab, she wanted nothing to do with any enrichment item, or even blankets to nest with. It wasn’t until one day a month or so after her arrival, a colorful crazy-haired Troll doll caught her eye and it’s been a love affair since. Though she has expanded and updated her dolls from Trolls to the likes of Dora the Explorer, Strawberry Shortcake, and more recently Moana and Maribel from Encanto, she treats every single one of them like one of her children she was denied to raise in the lab, even though she is aware they are inanimate objects. Though she can be sweet and nurturing with them, they are also prone to have appendages pulled off or scalped from time to time.

Foxie with Maribel from Disney’s Encanto

We recently found out George loves to engage the right hemisphere of his brain by letting his artistic creativity flow. One day we provided him with crayons with some paper and he sat there scribbling on the paper, mixing oranges with blues and greens with purples. More recently he seems to have been taking a liking to use non-toxic finger paints to express himself.

George inspecting his green crayon

When asked why we don’t sell or auction off some of the art the chimpanzees make, the answer is complicated. Though there is nothing wrong with sanctuaries doing this to help fund the needs of the chimpanzees’, we tend to take it as an opportunistic approach. Essentially, we are conflicted on it becoming a scenario where we are influencing their choice to partake in these activities instead of allowing them to truly make it on their own. If there is an opportunity for such, say if they pass their work to us willing or leave it in the enclosure we are cleaning, then maybe. More often than not though they tend to destroy their art before it gets to that point.

George fashionably painting wearing an orange sweat band

To kind of sum up all of this, our philosophy is these are individuals with their own unique personalities. We allow them to express themselves and provide them choices they were denied for the majority of their lives. As caregivers, our job is to not only to provide the best possible care we can, but also advocate for them and the many others like them who have not made their way to sanctuary yet. The ultimate goal is to create a future where we are not needed any more. A future where their use as test subjects, actors, pets, or any other form of exploitation no longer exists. It’s not the greatest philosophy in terms of job security, but it is necessary. We are here for them. Not the other way around. It’s while you’ll probably read terms like “serve” instead of “feed,” “people” instead of animal” or “beast,” and others to showcase them as truly sentient beings and not any kind of lesser creature.

Gordo watching caregivers clean the Oakwood Greenhouse

If you would like to help support our mission in providing top quality, there are many ways to do so. You can make a one time monetary donation, or sign up to become a Chimpanzee Pal, Bovine Buddy, or Produce Patron. As you may have seen, you can also sponsor a day of the sanctuary where a blog will be written in dedication whom or whatever you choose. Another way to help is to peruse through our different wish lists to see what the sanctuary is in need of. Beside the wish lists, another more direct way to participate in the residents’ care is to volunteer if you are local. Please be sure to read the prerequisites and requirements before filling out a volunteer application. You can also attend one of our galas or fundraising events. The are some great items that are up for auction at these events, especially HOOT!, which is hosted both in-person in Seattle and online. We are a small sanctuary and all of our operations are funded through donations.

Teeny Tiny Terry is actually not so teeny

We sincerely hope you enjoy keeping up with the chimpanzees and cattle through the blog and fall in love with them they way we all have by getting to know their own unique selves.

Two Awkward Guys

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As Diana mentioned, we swapped Gordo and Terry in the reintro group yesterday to try to get a better idea of what might trigger Willy B’s antisocial behavior. The reunion between Terry and Honey B was easy – after a brief, half-hearted display, Terry approached the mesh and the two began to play, at which point we simply opened the door between them.

We knew that Gordo would be nervous reentering a group with Willy B so we tried to ensure that Cy, the group’s alpha, would be the first to greet him when the door was opened. We could have introduced Gordo to a subset of the reintro group initially but since they all know each other so well we thought we’d just get right to it.

There are several interesting things to watch here. First, you can see how Cy polices the behavior of his subordinates and protects the vulnerable—you can see his “feets of fury” (thank you, Sabrina) in action in the playroom scene as he tells Willy B to step down. He’s a good guy. Second, you can see how the females attempt to modulate the behaviors of the males through distractions and grooming. Rayne is particularly adept at this and very in tune with the needs of her group, always watching for moments when the boys might need a little help getting along. And finally, you can see clearly how chimpanzees express trust in one another—which is, of course, by putting sensitive body parts in each other’s mouths.

This interaction between Gordo and Willy B may seem at first glance like two best friends rejoicing in being reunited but this is actually what is looks like when chimps don’t trust each other. These lengthy, exaggerated displays of vulnerability (e.g., putting your fingers, backside, or scrotum in between another chimps’ gigantic canine teeth) are more common when there isn’t already a solid basis of trust. It’s also common for males to display erections in these circumstances, which may be another evolved display of vulnerability (chimp penises are usually fully retracted into the body for protection). I imagine some of our own greeting gestures such as shaking hands and bowing aren’t that far removed from these same behaviors, though obviously a bit more PG-rated according to our sensibilities.

It will be interesting to see how Gordo’s presence (and Terry’s absence) in the group changes Willy’s behavior, if at all.

 

Reintroduction Update

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Back in late October, we began “reintroducing” the members of Cy’s family to one another with the hope of creating a more stable social group. The idea, in short, was to split off the alpha, Cy, along with the dominant but short-tempered and socially awkward Willy B, until their relationship with one another was clear. After that, we’d gradually build the group back up (the Reintro Group) by adding those left behind in the other group (the Remainers) in a way that would hopefully support a clear hierarchy around Cy (there was an alternate plan to rebuild the group around Willy B should he have proven himself dominant to Cy, which thankfully didn’t happen). At each stage there were benchmarks to bet met, including behaviors like play, grooming, shared use of food puzzles, and a lack of conflict requiring separation, before another member would be moved to the Reintro Group. Members would be added one at a time initially and then in pairs near the end to ensure adequate social support and an even balance of power.

The staff have been monitoring the chimps, day and night, and recording behaviors, welfare indicators, and descriptions of interactions to help us evaluate the group’s progress.

We paid particular attention to indications of dominance between the males, such as who gets to take food and when—what animal behaviorists call priority access to resources.

Willy B’s behavior when paired solely with Cy was a dramatic break from the patterns we were concerned about. He was respectful of Cy’s status. He didn’t bang on the walls at all hours of the night. He seemed generally less agitated. None of which is too surprising given what we had speculated about his social anxiety before. After about a week, once Cy and Willy B had met the benchmarks and their statuses relative to one another were clear, we added Rayne, a dominant female from Cy’s original group. Rayne was, as always, adept at navigating the social waters.

This was probably the easiest grouping for Willy B, as both Cy and Rayne are socially savvy and extremely tolerant of Willy’s less conforming behavior.

Lucky, who generally plays the role that captive primate experts often refer to as the “potted plant,” entered the Reintro Group without much drama (potted plants are chimps that tend to sit on the sidelines while all of the intense drama unfolds around them).

With Lucky in the group, Willy B continued to keep himself together, for the most part. And Cy was playing a far more active role in the hierarchy, spending slightly less time with his magazines and a little more time being the boss.

As his time in this larger group went on, however, Willy B began to backslide into some of his old tendencies, particularly the late-night commotion-making. But without Terry to direct his frustration towards, or Honey B to serve as his “I-don’t-know-what’s-happening-but-I’m-ready-to-fight!” wing man, the group felt free to ignore him.

With the benchmarks met yet again, it was time to add Dora. And to our surprise, the group immediately began to engage in more affiliative behavior.

But while Dora’s presence helped the Reintro group coalesce, her absence from the Remainers had just the opposite effect.

It seemed like Terry and Gordo took the opportunity, in the absence of some of the more dominant chimps, to attempt to establish themselves over Honey B and Mave. But Honey B and Mave were not having any of it. Mave was screaming and chasing Gordo every time he tried to take food—a troubling behavior that she has exhibited previously, though to a lesser degree, and which, I should note, does not make her any less perfect in my eyes 🙂 The instability of the Terry/Gordo/Mave/Honey B grouping prompted us to expedite Dora’s stage in the Reintro Group and add Terry and Mave, much to everyone’s relief.

And while we thought the Gordo and Honey B, the two loners, would protest at being paired alone together, they have instead been bonding and being exceptionally playful with their caregivers. Who would have imagined?

So what have we learned so far? We’ve learned that Cy is not yet ready to retire from his role as alpha to spend his days alone with his magazines. We’ve learned that Rayne pulls the strings. We’ve learned that Lucky is still a potted plant. We’ve learned that Dora is the secret sauce. We’ve learned that Terry may want to be more dominant to the females than he was letting on. We’ve learned that Mave can be without Dora for an entire week, but that she’ll take it out on Gordo. And we’ve learned that Gordo and Honey B have been secret best friends this whole time and that they just needed some privacy for their relationship to blossom. Most importantly, we learned that there’s hope for Willy B. He’s shown that somewhere deep down inside has it in himself to maintain his composure, understand his place in a group, and generally act in accordance with chimpanzee social rules. For a little while, at least.

The final stage of this process will involve adding Honey B and Gordo together to the Reintro Group, once the benchmarks have been met. And this will be the real test. Will Willy B revert to picking on Terry and causing constant chaos once the gang is all back together? Will Cy put a stop to it if he does? Will Honey B turn every conflict up to 11? It’s easier to shake up an ingrained behavioral pattern in a new setting. Once the group is all back together, will they go right back to their old ways?

Primatology is very much a science. But most of behavioral primatology involves developing hypotheses to explain behavior and then testing them with data. Projects like this reintroduction are an attempt to run the process in reverse—taking the data and hypotheses we have and attempting to generate the behavior we want to see. This is scienceish at best, but it’s all we’ve got (my apologies to every applied social scientist I just offended). We take an informed guess at a solution, try something, and then try something else if that doesn’t work.

Chimpanzees, like humans, are tough nuts to crack.

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On a different note, I wanted to be the one to get to thank the 2024 Comfort & Joy auction donors that contributed to the fund to replace stolen property and prevent future theft. I was so disheartened to discover one morning that parts of the system to the new entry gate that Jake and I had worked so hard on over the summer were stolen. Your generosity has helped us purchase replacement components as well as a motion-activated solar streetlight and 4G security camera. I harbor no ill will to the person who felt they had to steal these items. But I only want to have to replace them once 🙂 So, thank you to Steve Y., Jamie R., Sue R., Sheery B., Deborah J, Lisa T., Nancy D., and Dori O. for helping to keep the sanctuary secure!