Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

natural

The wild and the weird

by

When given the opportunity, chimpanzees who have spent their entire lives in laboratory cages can learn to be chimps again.

They can learn to climb, run, leap, and swing:

web Missy at top of climbing structure post bamboo YH IMG_4412

They can learn to forage for their own snacks:

web_Jody_wide_eyes_bamboo_YH_jb_IMG_3720

And they can learn to patrol and defend their territory :

web_Jamie_look_into_distance_mountains_YH_jb_IMG_3396

But it takes patience. When you’ve spent your entire life surrounded by concrete and bars, those things can end up providing a certain kind of comfort. It’s what you know. It’s all you’ve ever known.

Little by little, the chimps at CSNW have embraced new opportunities, confronted some of their fears, and found that there was a little more “wild” in them than they may have realized when they were locked up in that laboratory basement.

This year, these changes seem to be happening at an accelerated pace. Burrito has been joining Jamie on her walks around the hill, and even going it alone at times. A couple of weeks ago, Foxie was seen sitting on the shaky bridge – a huge step for someone who has always been afraid of anything not firmly bolted down.

And this morning, we saw almost the entire troop take a walk up the hill together, far away from the building, just for the fun of it.

web_Five_chimps_on_walk_YH_jb_IMG_0631

But along with patience, you also need understanding. Because these new experiences are adding to who they are, not replacing who they were. Foxie may be exploring new play structures, but she’s relying on Dora more than ever:

web_Foxie_walk_dora_in_mouth_YH_jb_IMG_9924

And while Jamie may be walking miles each day around the perimeter of Young’s Hill, she is ever more adamant that we dress in cowboy boots to go along with her. Let me give you an example of how particular she has become: Jamie’s favorite boots for the last few months have been a pair of all black women’s cowboy boots. She insists that her caregivers put them on before heading out on a walk. But some of us, ahem, do not fit easily into women’s boots, no matter how hard we try. That doesn’t concern Jamie. For a while, I tried to fake like I had them on, sticking just my toes in and then pulling my jeans down over them to cover my heels sticking out. No dice. As you put them on, she stares intently to ensure that you are wearing them properly. Heels must be all the way down.

web_JB_small_boots_IMG_6592

There are times when I am reminded how crazy this all is – like when we finish up a walk and I return to the entry gate, only to have to strut my stuff across the driveway in ladies boots as the UPS driver unloads packages at the door. They must really wonder what’s going on here.

It’s crazy, but it’s who they are. You can’t erase their past, or what it’s led them to become. And why would you want to? So while we strive to provide more and more “wild” in their lives, we can never stop embracing the weird.

web_Jamie_walk_YH_jb_IMG_0350

Foxie and the garter snake

by

Chimps are very investigative, defensive, and at times aggressive. Combine all these characteristics and add a small garter snake into the equation and you get a whole group of chimps ready to attack an intruder! This morning a garter snake made its way into the greenhouse and the chimps were on high alert. Everyone took a second to peer at it, but most kept their distance. Foxie, however, showed a lot of bravery and was doing her best to protect her home by trying to attack the snake (but without touching it).

The chimps encounter snakes every now and then. They’re very careful not too get too close to something that raises so much alarm, which is a smart instinct. Thankfully, garter snakes are completely harmless so there’s nothing to really worry about if they do touch it. In fact after filming this attack, I closed off the greenhouse and picked up the snake (who was still alive) and took him to a nice garden area that I thought he’d pretty happy about. I apparently don’t have a huge fear of snakes because I was holding him for awhile, talking to volunteers Patti and Connie about how we were going to set up today’s lunch forage, when they said “will you just put that snake down already?!” Like I said, harmless 🙂

The snakes seem to be good at “playing dead” so as not to actually get killed. At the end of the video you’ll see that Jamie was fairly convinced Foxie had taken care of the problem, and then left it alone. I was glad to be able to rescue it and find that he was not at all harmed.

What is natural?

by

If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know that we strive to post photos and videos of the chimps’ daily lives – everyday. We made a decision even before the Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees arrived that we wanted people to get to know who they were and what Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is all about. We share every area of the sanctuary, even if there’s paint peeling in the shot (it’s so hard to get paint to stick when you clean as often as we do!). We want to let people in, and we want them to fall in love with Missy, Jamie, Negra, Burrito, Jody, Annie and Foxie as we have.

Working in a sanctuary and doing all of this sharing leads to some interesting questions about what “natural behavior” is for chimpanzees. It’s not the easiest question. Captivity itself is not “natural” for chimpanzees. We firmly believe that chimpanzees don’t belong in captivity. We’d love to see the day when sanctuaries like ours are obsolete because there are no more chimpanzees in laboratories, entertainment or in private homes – no more chimpanzees that need rescuing. In the meantime, we care for seven chimpanzees who have come from very unnatural and impoverished lives. They all have unique personalities shaped by their genetic makeup combined with their unusual and tragic past experiences.

The daily lives of the Cle Elum Seven are pretty different than what they would experience in their native habitat in Africa. All of the staff members have studied primatology, and we understand this. We use our knowledge of chimpanzee behavior to provide the chimps with what they need: a social group, room to roam, nesting material, enrichment to keep their minds occupied, choices, vertical space, the opportunity to exercise, a diet full of variety but focused on fresh fruits and vegetables, food forages to mimic what chimpanzees spend most of their time in the wild doing – looking for food, a routine so they know what to expect, and celebrations plus anything else we can think of to make each day unique.

I do worry sometimes that people might come across a photo like the one below that I took earlier today and not understand all of what I wrote above. I worry that, taken out of context, what we share might give people the wrong idea about chimpanzees and what Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is all about. I’d love your thoughts on this issue.

Below is a very unnatural chimpanzee scene, unless it’s from a chimpanzee sanctuary in the NW of the United States in February, in which case it’s pretty normal.

Jamie licking peanut butter off of a pair of clown glasses while Jody and Foxie enjoy snow from a kiddie pool:

Jody, Jamie and Foxie around a pool full of snow