Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Jamie

Wednesdays

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Wednesdays are kind of crazy days. Between cleaning, serving meals, walking with Jamie, feeding cattle, making sure the daily tasks are done, and it being a day we usually have our staff meeting. It’s a pretty packed day! However, for the chimps their Wednesdays are pretty relaxed. Especially today! For lunch the 7 enjoyed a forage on Young’s Hill. In the afternoon, Jamie and I were on a leisurely stroll and it seemed like everyone was out peacefully enjoying the Hill. As for the 3 they did have a chance to go onto the Hill, but no takers yet, one day! Honey B, Mave, and Willy B did enjoy their day grooming, playing chase with friends, and enjoying the warm spring air in the chute. This is my long apology for the blog being posted so late 🙂 Please enjoy these photos of the chimps!

In the morning everyone rushed out on to Young’s Hill, Negra included! The grass is so green it almost looks photo-shopped.

Negra:

Foxie carrying her Strawberry Shortcake:

Missy:

For the lunch forage, we scattered whole peppers, tomatoes, and beets all over the Hill.

Missy made sure to snag all the tomatoes (she also loves green bell peppers):

Negra was scoping out who she might be able to steal some forage from:

I love this photo of Jamie:

After the forage everyone went into the Green House to unwind.

Jody lounging with her spruce tree branches:

Foxie:

Well, almost everyone wanted to unwind.

The mischievous Burrito:

Also Willy B:

And if you stay late enough you can get a photo of Honey B in her nest:

Goodnight everyone!

 

 

 

Spring has Sprung

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Since spring has sprung, so has Jamie! Jamie has been taking full advantage of these beautiful spring days and even the not so nice ones. Yesterday, well today too, Jamie and I were walking machines! If we were not walking we were grooming. All day it felt like someone was watching me. If I went to get water or start on a project she would appear, better yet, if she couldn’t see me she would stare into the camera by the playroom and wait for me to come. Seriously, nothing gets past Jamie, which is why she is so amazing. Once she would get my attention, she would take off running onto the Hill! Even when it was time for everyone to go home and Young’s Hill was closed off she wasn’t ready. So, Jamie groomed, her still favorite, XTRATUF boots in the green house for a little bit longer. Because it is spring now, Jamie needs to be doing extra patrols. There are cattle in the pasture next to the Hill and she needed to make sure that Honey B, Willy B, and Mave are being closely monitored in the Chute. She is a busy person. To be honest, because our days in the chimp house are a bit busier now, it was nice to be able to spend some quality time with her, and know that she got to do everything she wanted to do that day! All in all, when you get that feeling of someone watching you, it’s probably Jamie. 😉

Here is a rare photo of Jamie laying down yesterday:

Jamie saw Chad wearing his cattle boots during our walk and demanded he join us! Missy, Burrito, Honey, Meredith, Nutmeg, and Betsy came too.

Alarming adventures

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I feel like today was easily the warmest of the year so far, unseasonably so at almost 70.

And as such, J.B. and Anthony decided it was a great day to usher our bovine family, Betsy and her son, Nutmeg, and Honey and her daughter, Meredith, back to their summer pasture alongside Young’s Hill. Much to the cattle’s delight. And well, with mixed reviews from the chimpanzees.

Meredith, Betsy and Anthony:

The bovines didn’t even have time to delight the humans as we all stood in hopes of seeing a lot of running and kicking and jumping about, they set straight to work chomping all the spring grass suddenly at their disposal.

Betsy, Meredith and Honey (Nutmeg was hanging out just to the left with J.B., but I missed a photo!

Of course, the chimps had to investigate this situation immediately and everyone but Negra marched straight up the hill to check things out. Jamie, naturally, led the way and promptly took a seat on Twister (see our Sponsor a Day today for the wonderful story behind this amazing structure!) to assess the situation. The funny thing about Jamie though is that she made virtually no acknowledgement of the cattle, though if her face was to tell any tale, she appeared rather vexed with their return. She asked for her caregivers to accompany her on several walks to the top of the hill throughout the afternoon, but each time we reached the top she promptly “ignored” the cattle and marched back to the chimp house.

Jody, Burrito and Foxie (and Dora) were close behind:

Foxie and Burrito:

Foxie and Burrito were moderately unimpressed by the return of their summer neighbors and headed back to the greenhouse (Missy and Jamie, background):

At some point, sweet Annie had made her way up the hill, but seemingly once she spotted those “demon” cattle she screamed at the top of her lungs and high-tailed it all the way back to the safety of the greenhouse where I found her surrounded by Burrito and Missy. So it appears cows are now on the list with snakes. It’s really curious as Annie has shown zero concern regarding the cattle in past seasons, not to mention she can see the neighbors’ cattle in the pastures below. I’m guessing she just wasn’t expecting the return of the summer neighbors.

Once Annie was safely ensconced in the greenhouse, we heard a huge ruckus erupt from the chute where we found Mave, Willy B and Honey B expressing their thoughts over the cattle. Honey B in particular seemed very alarmed by their presence (perhaps taking a cue from Annie) and climbed to the top of the chute where she repeatedly vocalized alarm calls and asked Chad and I for reassurance. Poor Honey B eventually calmed down and returned to Phase I just in time for Mave to come screaming inside and flee upstairs into Honey B’s arms where she sounded alarm calls for several minutes. Chad and I discovered it was due to a low flying helicopter.

Willy B and Mave:

So the chimpanzees and the cattle and the humans were enriched with adventures of all manner today. Just as we all hope our days to be (though, perhaps, a little less alarming to some of us). 😉

Toasty Warm Green House

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As many of you know we have an Amazon Wish List where wonderful people buy things the chimps need or items that go to our daily operations. In these weird times, like many of you might know, things are limited on Amazon or may take a while to ship. We use gloves and disinfectant everyday, but we are going through them more quickly now. We started running low on gloves and other cleaning items that are super important to protect the chimps, which worried us a bit! Luckily, Jerrol’s, a local store nearby Ellensburg, had every thing we needed and were fully stocked. We ordered gloves and disinfectant in minutes! If you are ever curious how you can help the chimps please check out our Amazon Wish List or if you would like to help us during this weird time you can buy a gift card to Jerrol’s to help us purchase gloves and other day to day cleaning items we may need!

To be honest, it was hard to get photos of the chimps today. They were either baking in the warm Green House or scattered on the Hill. However, I managed to snap a few good ones of Annie grooming herself in the toasty warm green house.

This photo was captured right as the seven received access to Young’s Hill this morning.

Burrito taking a stroll.

Negra right before she decided it wasn’t quite warm enough yet.

Jamie on her after dinner walk, also walking the opposite direction than normal.

Routines

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I know you are not here to get yet-another take on the current state of the strange and unprecedented (most over-used word for 2020?) times we are living in or to add to your own personal stress.

Just like so many other people, this pandemic can be rather all-consuming for me too.

Every day, I do recognize that I’m so lucky to have a job. And not just a job, but a job where most of those I interact with (the non-humans) are not consumed by daily death tolls or endless graphs showing morbid peaks.

This week, however, the chimpanzee sanctuary has faced additional stresses. Foxie has been lethargic and hasn’t been eating as much as she normally does and Jamie had a recurrence of an old abscess (I won’t go into details right now, but you can read a bit about it here). All the while we are still closely monitoring Jody’s healing foot. Needless to say, we’ve been constantly in contact with Dr. Erin and consumed with taking temperatures and comparing notes about every possible symptom we see.

Before moving on, I will reassure you that all three of them are doing fine today!

Jody’s foot is looking good and I can hear her ripping up blankets for her nest right now. Foxie is still tired but was quite active today and seems to be catching on that we will sneak her any food she wants – Kelsi just gave her a banana well after dining hours were over. Jamie’s abscess is draining and she is feeling well enough to keep me late to join her on walks around the hill.

Here’s a photo I just took on our walk before sitting down to write this:

I have taken dozens and dozens of photos that look exactly like the one above and I could have taken hundreds over the years. Jamie is keen on rituals that she herself invents.

They say that maintaining rituals and routines helps to cope with uncertainty and stress. I’m personally not great at following that sage wisdom for myself and have found myself unraveling some this week. My own poor coping skills aside, we do have a lot of routines and rituals here at the sanctuary that I enjoy.

Anthony’s post How To Speak CSNW explained a few of them, like “going on a walk” (as above) and the serving of “night bags” to the chimpanzees at the end of the day.

Night bags are a routine that all of the chimpanzees appreciate, and I managed to get a few photos of the chimps enjoying their night bags tonight while I was spot-cleaning the playroom.

Here’s a close up of Missy’s hand where you can see the current night bag mix spilled out on the windowsill so she can pick through it and eat her favorite bits first.

This one shows Jody in the background in “phase one” of eating her night bag:

And here’s Jody’s “phase 2” – sprawled out on her stomach with the night bag between her arms:

Burrito got his bag and ripped it open to pick through with his lips:

Foxie enjoyed hers lying down on the upper deck of the platform:

Jody left her bag and Burrito quickly went to check out what he could scavenge:

Then it was Foxie and Jamie’s turn to see if any of those shells contained an overlooked seed:

With the nightly ritual of the night bags over, and me finished with the spot-cleaning, most of the chimpanzees retired to the playroom to make their nests for the night. But Jamie’s routine does not include going to bed right after dinner…

We’ll see how late she stays up, with me in tow, feeling thankful that she is allowing me to join in her disruptive routine.

Day 31

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Today marks day 31 of our new normal, for the humans, that is. For any new blog followers; because of COVID-19 we have been taking extra precautions to make sure the chimps are not exposed. We have a whole routine just to walk into the chimp house in the morning. We glove & mask up, disinfect our shoes & personal things, and we change into scrubs. All throughout the day we are changing gloves and washing our hands. The other part of our new normal, which is were we started counting our new normal, it is just staff and one volunteer that met our very strict criteria. So, to say we have been busy would be an understatement! We have been keeping a record of our new normal. See photo below. But, if we wanted to get technical we believe this started 36 days ago.

However, for the chimps nothing has changed! They are blissfully unaware of the pandemic going on and they are all enjoying the nice weather! In the photos you can see the green grass coming back (EEEK!)

We have the marvelous Missy! Today, on Young’s Hill Missy and Annie ran out of the raceway chasing each other. Missy was also walking all over the fire hose on the Hill, she has some seriously amazing balance!

A perfectly graceful twist as the dismount!

Missy sprinting down the Hill.

I mean that takes a strong core balance!

Jamie leading the perimeter walk, while Burrito followed. Missy and Annie were chasing each other and took a break to join the walk.

I noticed Annie had been draping this piece of blanket over her waist, she kind of stuck a side in each pelvic pocket to create a waist band. Than when everyone got access to the Hill in the morning. I saw Annie carrying it out with her. Even through sprinting after Missy, Annie kept it with her or knew exactly where it was so she could grab it!

Negra gathered everyone’s orange peels and headed out onto the Hill.

Burrito looking over towards the Chute, hoping to catch a glimpse of Honey B, Mave, & Willy B.

On the Phase 1 side, Honey B was being her goofy self. I found Honey B balancing on this fire hose, wearing a headband, and upside down.

Later, she went up to look at herself in the mirror.

She is a pretty amazing individual.

Chimpanzees are terrible at social distancing

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Even if we were able to explain to the chimpanzees that we thought it would be best for them to keep their distance from one another, I guarantee they would not be compliant. Chimpanzees are in each other’s personal space constantly.

When they are grooming, it can be difficult to see where one chimp begins and the other ends, like Burrito grooming Foxie’s back today:

Even chimpanzees who are more human-focused frequently want physical contact with their caregivers. We’re strict about safety and never want to put ourselves in the position of being harmed by a chimpanzee. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re even more strict as we protect them as much as we can from potentially picking up any viruses from us.

Jamie can still find ways to groom us, or more accurately, groom “her” boots.

As for isolation, chimpanzees don’t take to it very well.

When Burrito was in his long recovery a few months ago, he actually did remarkably well. It helped that he still had contact with his chimpanzee and human companions through the fencing every day and he was able to watch the group to keep tabs on what they were up to. I think he discovered some benefits to being alone, such as midnight bagel deliveries and not having to deal with other chimps during mealtimes. Still, he was more than ready to go back with his group.

Jody has been isolated from her group for the last few days while she recovers from her foot procedure. She too can interact with the other chimpanzees and the humans through the caging, but she’s less comfortable than Burrito with this temporary separation.

I’m sure many of you can relate right now as you isolate alone or with your family.

One of Jody’s favored activities is nesting, so we are providing lots and lots of blankets for her. She, in turn, is ripping up those blankets to create even better nests.

Today Kelsi put a big pile of blanket strips that Jody created in a laundry basket and we put it in front of Jody’s room so she could pick them out herself.

We’re trying to keep her busy, and maybe she’s learning that it’s okay being a spectator instead of in the mix with the other chimpanzees once in a while too:

I heard someone describe this period the world is going through right now as everyone isolated alone, together. We’re glad to be a part of your together.