Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Last summer we got this pretty awesome workbench which the chimpanzees loved (and loved to death!) so we added the same workbench to our Amazon wishlist again recently. Jamie and Annie both spent a fair amount of time with it, but Annie was able to stay out of sight from the paparazzi 🙂 But we did get a few photos of Jamie playing with the tools.
First she knocked the bench on its side and twisted the vice around:
And then she used the wrench as a screwdriver:
I’ve recently been asked about how we receive kisses from the chimpanzees. The simple answer is that the chimpanzees extend their lips through the wire caging toward us and we put the back of our hand up towards their lips. But, words can only describe so much; pictures actually show it. So, today I tried to capture that through photos, but none of the chimps offered kisses to me (perhaps because I had the camera in hand?). So, I had to resort to the next best way of showing how the chimpanzees extend their prehensile lips towards us to give us a kiss. Meal time is the perfect opportunity to capture the chimpanzees extending their lips through the wire caging.
In the following photos, volunteer caregiver Becca served breakfast to the chimps this morning. On the menu were red pears and oranges, along with a watermelon, banana and protein powder smoothie. Each of the chimpanzees are also given fiber pills and vitamins every morning. You will notice in the following pictures that Becca’s fingers never penetrate the caging. For safety reasons, we consider the caging to be a barrier between our space and that of the chimpanzees, therefore we never stick our fingers into the enclosures.
Annie takes her fiber pill at breakfast.
Annie getting her share of the breakfast smoothie.
Burrito uses his lips to slurp his smoothie.
Jamie uses her lips to take her fiber pill.
Missy
Jody’s lips are pretty impressive. She seems to have the furthest “reach” with them. What do you think?
Jody taking her vitamins.
Jamie has a mind that never sleeps. We do our best to keep her occupied and enriched, but sometimes she has to take matters into her own hands. It’s not unusual to find Jamie working on a project of her own making – anything from stuffing socks into a hollow tube, to pouring liquid back and forth from one container to another, to tying knots in scarves. (She even participated in routine fecal sample collection once.)
Interestingly, Jamie often prefers that these activities are done in privacy. As soon as she notices a caregiver watching – or even worse, trying to film or take photos – she stops what she’s doing. This morning I caught her using the wooden blocks in the photo below to hammer the red plastic stick into the floor of the playroom. Even though I knew I was pushing my luck, I grabbed the camera in hopes that I might get a video for the blog, but not surprisingly, the game was over as soon as she spotted me.
Speaking of keeping the chimps enriched, we posted the photo below to our Facebook page this morning and asked everyone to guess whose feet are socked up so stylishly. The answer is Missy! Missy and Jody both love to wear socks (and in fact these particular socks were sent to Jody by her Pal Sandy Nelson), but typically it’s only one at a time. Missy loves to pull on a sock (or two) when she’s feeling a little playful. (If you’re wondering why we’re okay posting photos of Missy wearing socks while we advocate against the use of chimpanzee “performers” wearing clothes in movies and on TV, please visit this page.)
Jamie is never one to shy away from adventure. If you are one of Jamie’s Chimpanzee Pals, you received an email from Katelyn yesterday with an update on some of her summer antics. One notable antic is Jamie’s frequent decision during the summer to stay out on the hill post-dinner, past the time we usually close it up for the night.
All of the staff have been staying late here and there to join Jamie on her post-dinner walks until she decides it’s time to go to bed, which is usually long after the other chimpanzees have bedded (nested?) down for the night.
Because J.B. and I live on the property, we often relieve the other staff at a certain point and take over so they can go home. This is what happened a few days ago. Katelyn had stayed a little over an hour beyond her designated shift, and I came up to the chimp house to watch over things.
Jamie immediately wanted to go on a walk, with me wearing her latest favorite black cowboy boot.
Sometimes Jamie’s walks seem goal-oriented and efficient: patrol the fence line and return to the greenhouse; but her late evening walks tend to be more exploratory, and she meanders off the path of the fence. Such was her mood the other night.
She got to the top of the hill and decided to jump up on one of the log bridges:
And walk to the end of the log:
Then sit on the other end:
And look into the distance:
Do a little self-grooming:
And sit some more, contentedly (I love a content Jamie!):
Then, she was ready to continue the patrol around the hill. When we got to the South side of the building, we discovered two of the neighbor’s cattle close by:
Jamie went into “defend the property mode”:
Which worked quite well:
Then it was back to the chimp house, and on to the next adventure, like foraging for lunch today:
It’s still difficult to fathom that this adventuresome, headstrong, curious and extremely intelligent chimpanzee lived for so long the way she did in her previous life as an entertainer and biomedical laboratory research subject, but she certainly knows how to make up for lost time, and we couldn’t be happier to watch her do it.
Today we put out a breakfast forage in the Greenhouse and a lunch forage on Young’s Hill.
Annie enjoyed the tangerines, while Burrito pretty much enjoyed every single morsel of food he could find at breakfast.
Jamie loved her tomatoes!
Missy was the first one to find the small sugar pumpkin (part of today’s lunch forage on Young’s Hill) on top of the wooden platform and quickly brought it to the Greenhouse.
Jody was quick to take over Missy’s find. She proceeded to bring the treat into the Playroom to enjoy.
Then it was Negra’s turn.
Jody and Annie were nearby in case Negra decided to share. Here Jody can be seen peering toward Negra.
We celebrated Annie’s 40th birthday today! Her exact birthday is unknown since she was captured in the wild, but her records indicate that she was born sometime in 1974, and today is the day we picked to celebrate it. Annie certainly doesn’t act 40 at all! She’s still very young at heart—she shows her playful side daily when wrestling with Missy or running around Young’s Hill.
We wanted to celebrate her special day with some of her favorites—green grass, beets, green onions, piñatas, buckets of water, shovels, and chow! Thanks to some supplies Lisa Stuverud brought us we had a fun colorful party with new enrichment, too. We set up a breakfast forage first, and then volunteer Becca served Annie’s favorite veggies at lunch.
Here’s the party setup:
I love this photo — you can see the juice from the tangerine spraying to the side! Good shot by Elizabeth.
Annie with a mouthful of chow (she loves to wadge chow!)
Annie loves green grass, so we picked some for her and included bunches of it in their breakfast forage:
Some of her favorite veggies are green onions and beets:
The other chimps enjoyed the party too! Burrito the charmer practically posed during the forage for this photo:
Everyone loved the fruit! Here’s Jamie:
Jody:
Foxie:
Missy loved the green grass:
And Jody ended up getting the piñatas (there was a Dora the Explorer piñata too, but that was torn up before we could snap a photo!)
Foxie got a new troll and some knuckle rubs from Diana, which made her laugh:
And Negra spent a lot of time in hard-to-see spots during the day, but I did get this picture of her beautiful relaxed face:
Happy 40th Birthday, Annie!
When Jamie gets a new pair of boots, she likes to have a caregiver model them first. Here’s Debbie showing off new boots from Lisa Stuverud yesterday. (Jamie didn’t seem to mind that the boots were too small for Debbie.)
Then Jamie usually demands that the caregiver modeling the boots accompany her on a walk around Young’s Hill. When that’s done, Jamie’s ready for us to give her the boots. She spends some time inspecting them closely. Yesterday she even licked them.
