Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Jody

A wadge

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In the wild, chimpanzees will store chewed up fibrous materials (called a wadge) in their bottom lips. This way they can suck every last bit of juice out of tough, chewy plants. Just like their free-living counterparts, the Cle Elum 7 wadge fibrous things such as alfalfa cubes, pine tree needles, cattail leaves and other edible plants. They seem to enjoy eating their dry primate chow this way, stuffing their lips full and adding water so they can slowly savor the flavor.

Jody is fond of all things fibrous, including pineapple peel, seen here:

A perfect spot

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If you are Jamie, your perfect spot at the sanctuary is out on Young’s Hill performing a perimeter patrol.

If you’re Missy, you are also out on Young’s Hill, just moving at light speed!

If you’re Annie, your favorite spot is on a high platform with the sun on your face (with Missy close by of course).

If you’re Foxie, your perfect spot is anywhere you can take your favorite doll.

If you’re Jody, your favorite spot is right in the middle of a giant nest being groomed by your friends.

If you’re Negra, your favorite spot is the coziest, most sun-filled area you can possibly find.

And if you’re Burrito, your favorite spot isn’t as important as making sure your mouth and hands are both full of food at the exact same time!

Happy Birthday, Matt!

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A day of celebration and sanctuary was sponsored by Sharon Langone in honor of her husband, Matt! Sharon shared this wonderful message about today:

“I’d like to sponsor a day in honour of my husband Matt whose birthday is 18th April. It’s also our anniversary, married 9 years! We both love the chimps and one of the highlights of our day is checking the blog to see what the gang has been up to.”  

So much to celebrate! Matt, we hope this is the happiest birthday yet for you!

Sharon, thank you so much for sponsoring such a special day for your family and including the chimpanzees, we’re so touched! And Happy Anniversary to you both from all of us here at CSNW! Have a wonderful day!

Good friends, Burrito and Jody:

Easter 2017 Part II

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The day after the big celebration the chimpanzees have been napping, resting and eating light, recovering from yesterday’s all day party! As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, here are a few photos from the first Young’s Hill forage of the year (aka Easter Party #2):

Annie picking carrots we “buried” for the chimps to harvest:

Jody and Negra (Negra was ALL over the place! It was her day 🙂 ):

Jody finds a quiet spot to enjoy her spoils:

Missy scored on corn:

Foxie and Dora on the hunt for Easter eggs filled with nuts and berries:

Boss lady, Jamie, thrilled with her beloved leeks:

And a bonus video of Easter shenanigans from the breakfast forage:

The pant-hoot vs the pant-grunt, as demonstrated by Burrito and Jody

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Sometimes it takes a little bit of play-by-play commentary to understand chimpanzee behavior..

In this video you can see Burrito displaying and pant-hooting. A chimpanzee displays when they want to look tough and intimidating to others. You will notice Burrito’s hair is erect (making him look fluffy) and he stands bipedal to make himself appear larger. A pant-hoot is a low and breathy call that rises into a louder scream-like call, and it often accompanies a display.

This particular display happened shortly after a small fight between the chimpanzees had just ended. As a fight winds down, the chimps tend to separate and let off the last little bit of “steam” they built up during the fight.

After Burrito’s display, you will see Jody approaching him and doing a lot of submissive behavior. You can see she stays low in a crouch and bobs up and down when approaching him. You can also hear her try to placate his building display with deep rapid pant-grunts. I think J.B. mentioned a while ago, but but this kind of submissive behavior isn’t necessarily a sign that Jody deeply respects Burrito, but more that she wants to avoid getting smacked during his charging display.

Spring, storms, this and that.

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Springs storms are rolling through the area today and in typical fashion we go from sun, to cold wind, to rain, to hail and back to sun.

But spring hail (if you live in Cle Elum :)) brings the first tiniest of spring flowers:

No matter the weather, Missy asks to have the barn doors at the end of the playroom open and checks the garden every day!

And every time we open them up for the chimps to have a peek, it creates quite a ruckus and Missy is thrilled. She and Missy immediately began chasing each other around the playroom, laughing:

Jamie was keeping a close eye on the approaching storms from the chimp house windows after an aborted attempt at walking around the hill. She left me standing half way up on the windy hillside calling after her as she high-tailed it back to the greenhouse. Maybe she’s becoming a fair weather chimp?

It’s been a quiet afternoon with the unpredictable weather and the chimps have mostly congregated together in the toasty greenhouse to groom. If you are new to chimpanzee behavior, grooming is extremely important in chimp society. It’s a way to clean themselves and one another as well as to attend to any wounds, but it’s primary importance is that of building and maintaining their bonds with one another. Chimps use grooming to build relationships in the hierarchy and “get in good” with the more dominant chimps, it’s how they maintain bonds with friends, it’s how they soothe and calm each other and it’s how they make up after a fight. And here at CSNW, sometimes the chimps will choose to include their caregivers in their grooming. The chimpanzees relationships with one another are always the priority, but it’s always special when they include us.

Missy likes to groom herself with a small stick (seen here grooming her own arm) and invited me to do the same. For safety reasons we never allow our fingers to pass through the caging and the chimps know that if they want us to groom them or give them a knuckle rub, they have to press their body against the caging. You can’t see it here, but I am only using my forefinger and thumb to hold the tool – we keep as many fingers as we can tucked back for safety…That leg!

Here Annie (using her lips on her arm) and Jody are self-grooming:

Burrito was resting in the corner while Foxie groomed him, but he eventually moved down to groom with Jody:

The chimps have been loving the greenhouse today and even after an exciting dinner forage of roasted onions, pears, Brussels sprouts, and potatoes, they all took their evening enrichment of peanut butter in containers out to the greenhouse to enjoy. This is pretty unusual because they are typically building their night nests about this time. Keri and I said goodnight and received “crickets” in response. 🙂 Goodnight chimps! Goodnight friends of chimps!

Today’s happenings

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Hands down, today is the loveliest day we’ve seen in quite some time. The air is fresh and the with only a slight breeze. The chimps have been enjoying themselves with a variety of choices today, from roaming Young’s Hill throughout the day to nesting and grooming in the toasty sun-warmed greenhouse, to crazy games in the playroom.

Foxie began her day by tossing her new France Dora doll on her back (this is how chimp mamas carry their young) and heading up Young’s Hill for a morning stroll:

Missy has been asking for weeks to have the barn doors at the end of the playroom open so she can see if the garden popped up overnight yet. We usually give her a quick peek, but it’s still too cold to leave them open for more than a few minutes. But today was the first time it was actually warm enough to leave them open for about an hour so the chimps enjoyed sitting in the sun and watching Keri begin garden preparation!

Missy took a break from garden duty to head over for a game of ghost tug o’ war with me. You know that game, right? Put a blanket over your head and play tug o’ war? And then stand on your head, of course (Missy, not me!).

Of course, Jamie made sure to supervise Keri with all those tools (someone had to):

Jody enjoyed snoozing in a sun puddle:

And I think dear, sweet Annie summed up the day best for all of us as she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun:

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