Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Happy Birthday, Foxie!

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It’s hard to believe, but Foxie turned 38 today. Though she may have grown another year older, she showed that she has no plans to start acting her age any time soon. As soon as we walked in the door in the morning, she began spinning and pirouetting and chasing us from one part of the building to another while passing her troll dolls back and forth.

To celebrate her big day, we served all of Foxie’s favorite foods (fruit, fruit, and more fruit!) and gave her a few dozen new troll and Dora the Explorer dolls.  The chimps really enjoyed the birthday party – we tried to capture the look of sheer joy on their faces, but they would not stop inhaling watermelon long enough to be photographed.

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Luckily we got some video of the party as well:

Many thanks to all who have donated in honor of Foxie’s birthday! Here’s to many more birthdays to come!

Chimpanzee Nest Slumber Party

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A few days ago we discovered the remains of a slumber party in the loft of the playroom (see photo below):

slumber party nest

While it’s great to get photos of the chimpanzees doing things, it’s also fun to come across the evidence of their activities when we safely enter the area where they were.

The slumber party remains inspired me to take a look for some other nest photos, and below are a few favorites. But first a photo of Jody from a few weeks ago creating yet another nest masterpiece. I love the way Jody rolls the blankets to make a tight nest:

Jody nesting

 

Here’s another photo of some sort of slumber party action:

large nests together

 

This nest was found in Negra’s winter spot in the loft, so it might be hers, though it looks a bit neat for her style, so I’m going to guess it was a Missy construction. I like the unusually high sides:

nest in Negra's winter spot

 

What is happening here? Another multi-nest, or the start of a single enormous bed?

messy nest

 

I’m a fan of hay and straw incorporated into nests, like this day-nest found on top of the platform in the greenhouse:

nest with hay

 

and then there’s the nests that have toys and other favorite things included:

toyful nest

 

This one’s from just the other day. If you’re familiar with the chimps, I give you only one guess as to who made this bed:

boot nest

Burrito and Negra

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We often talk about Annie and Missy’s friendship, Foxie’s ability to get her friend Jamie to relax, and Burrito’s reliance on Foxie for reassurance when times are tense and their goofy play sessions when times are relaxed.

There are several close relationships among the chimpanzees. One that we haven’t talked about much is that between Burrito, the youngest chimpanzee, and Negra, the oldest.

Negra seems to give Burrito respect as the one male of the troop, perhaps more respect than some of the other ladies show him (ahem, Jamie).

Burrito and Negra often go to each when there’s something exciting going on, like setting up for a party, and they are frequent grooming partners too.

Today, as you can see from the photos below, they spent several minutes grooming one another after Negra was a bit concerned over a noise she heard.

Negra made a “pout face” as a reaction to the noise (which was a bird calling). This looks similar to when chimpanzees trumpet their lips to pant-hoot, but a pout face is used during times of concern, distress, or frustration:

Negra hoot face

 

Then Negra approached Burrito to be groomed, which can be a form of asking for reassurance:

Burrito Negra look at camera

Burrito groom Negra

Burrito groom Negra profile

Burrito groom Negra 2

 

Later, she reciprocated the grooming:

Negra groom Burrito

Burrito and Negra groom each other

Negra groom Burrito 2

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Living in a social group of others who understand their wants and needs is one of the most important aspects of sanctuary life for the chimpanzees, and we understand that they need to turn to one another, not to us humans, for their deepest and most important relationships.

Balance

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Chimpanzees have a well-deserved reputation for being aggressive. They fight over food, over sex, and over territory. They fight for dominance and out of jealousy.

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Sometimes I don’t think they even know why they are fighting – some fights among the seven end with all of them standing in a circle, screaming and looking around at each other as if to see if anyone else remembers what they are fighting about.

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But as violent as chimps may be, fights are relatively infrequent. They are much more likely to be hugging,

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and kissing,

annie kiss missy

and grooming,

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and holding hands (and feet).

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I used to think it was strange that animals capable of such extreme violence could be so tender and gentle. But I’m beginning to think it’s precisely because they are so violent that they are also so tender and gentle. A society with that level of aggression would not last long without an equally powerful force holding it together.

James and the Giant Beet

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Ok – the title of this post was maybe a bit of a stretch to reference James and the Giant Peach.

I do use the nickname James for Jamie, but, as you’ll see in the photos below, it wasn’t really a giant beet, plus one of the photos is of Missy’s hand, but still – pretty great photos of a pretty great chimpanzee REALLY enjoying the beets that volunteer Patti brought.

It is in the high 90s today, so most of the chimpanzees quickly foraged for their lunch on Young’s Hill and brought their haul into the cooler greenhouse to enjoy, though Jamie made multiple trips to make sure she had found all of the beets.

Jamie admiring beet

Jamie looking away eating beet

Jamie eating beet in profile

Jamie getting all she can out of a beet

 

Missy’s hand:

Missy hand holding beet

 

back to Jamie:

Jamie in doorway eating beet

Jamie enjoying beet

Jamie close up eating beet

Treats

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This weekend marked the start of our summer visitor program. During the guided observation of the chimpanzees, while the chimpanzees foraged for their lunch, I found myself talking a lot about food with our guests.

One thing that we discussed was how easy it is as a caregiver to want to give the chimpanzees “exciting” food all of the time. Chimpanzees, much like humans, love food. Witnessing their excitement as they see food being presented and hearing their food grunts and squeaks is incredibly rewarding.

We made the very conscious decision before the chimpanzees came to the sanctuary that we would not give them processed sugar and we would avoid food with added salt. In the last few years, we’ve even gone further, and rarely give them processed foods of any kind (with exceptions for certain holiday parties, like 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and their primate biscuits). Their diet therefore is almost entirely fresh produce with some seeds and nuts, peanut butter, air-popped popcorn, and a small amount of commercial “primate chow.”

The result of our somewhat strict rules on food is that the chimpanzees remain extremely excited about fresh produce. We hear food grunts and squeaks everyday over fruits and vegetables, even produce that they get on a frequent basis like apples and tomatoes.

If we had decided that it was okay to give the chimpanzees things like cookies, cake, pizza, ice cream, and all of those foods that we humans tend to have a love / hate relationship with, the chimpanzees would have grown accustomed to that diet and might look down their (rather flat) noses at lettuce, kale, cucumbers, radishes, and all of the produce they truly love now.

We recognize that we are responsible for the health of the chimpanzees, and we try to ensure that we are doing everything we can in the way of preventative health care, which means providing a healthy diet and opportunities for exercise.

We’re very happy that something like a single fresh raspberry, picked from the bushes right outside of the greenhouse and still warm from the sun, is a huge treat for Foxie (pictured below) and for all of the chimpanzees:

Foxie eating a raspberry

raspberries on vine

bowl of rasperries

 

Today Jamie savored the broccoli that was spread on the hill as part of the lunch forage, bringing it into the greenhouse to slowly eat:

Jamie with broccoli

Jamie eating broccoli floret

 

Dinner tonight included lettuce, watermelon (a special summer treat), and peppers:

dinner tray

 

Jody in particular likes to supplement the diet we provide with plants that she picks herself, including this bamboo that she brought into the playroom this afternoon and ate the leaves, one by one:

jody with bamboo

Our friend Zarin, who has written guest blog posts about her work at the Kibale National Park in Uganda, shared research they did that examined the nutritional profile of food that the chimpanzees in Kibale eat. One interesting thing they found was that even ripe fruit that the chimpanzees eat in the wild at that field site contain about the same amount of natural sugars as the carrots found in grocery stores and gardens here.

This information led us to serve more vegetables and less fruit to the Cle Elum Seven, and we now often sneak veggies into the chimps’ morning fruit smoothie. No doubt our policies will continue to adapt as we learn more, and hopefully the result will be healthy, happy, and long-lived chimpanzees.