Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Don’t tell Missy and Annie that they fall into the “elderly” category for chimpanzees. Just watch today’s video!
All of the chimps REALLY enjoyed the cooler weather this morning and were out and about. I took about four zillion photos, but when I was going through them, I realized I needed to highlight the video clips of Annie and Missy’s Olympic-worthy antics.
One of the great things about getting to know a chimpanzee is you learn how multidimensional their personalities are. When you first start being around chimps (or reading a blog about chimps), you learn what their favorite things are. Take Foxie for instance, she loves her Troll and Dora the Explorer dolls and she has a sweet tooth (fruit smoothie is always a hit).
Then as you dig a little deeper, you learn a little bit more…
Foxie is widely known for her mischievous fun personality. She does flips and spins with her caregivers and chimp friends. She tests human newcomers by spitting a stream of water at them, and she also plays with old caregiver friends by spitting a stream of water at them. She can get Jamie (who is usually the most serious of the bunch) to roll around on the floor, laughing and wrestling. Foxie is daring and brave, adventuring to all corners of Young’s Hill by herself (or with a doll in tow) and often being the leader in the hunt to find intruding snakes. She is also the peacekeeper of the group, sometimes trying to diffuse a situation with dramatic over the top play behavior. She is good friends with the boisterous Burrito, spending hours in the greenhouse grooming with him. Their friendship has limits though. When Burrito is running around the building, displaying and scaring the group (as male chimpanzees have a tendency to do), Foxie seems personally affronted when he tries to intimidate her. She turns the tables on him and may then chase him around, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Foxie is friendship, courage, and fun, rolled into a small chimpanzee package.
Primatologist Robert Yerkes once said, “One chimpanzee is no chimpanzee.” Spend a single morning watching the Cle Elum Seven and you will know exactly what he meant.
When you’re the most playful guy around, you quickly perfect your play initiation strategies.
Mornings in the chimp house can be pretty exciting. Today, everyone was in a good mood! Watch the video to see what all of the chimpanzees were up to, while the Greenhouse portion of their home was being cleaned.
This Monday, August 8th, we will be celebrating Foxie’s 40th birthday! This tiny woman is known for her joyful spirit and exuberant chimpanzee shenanigans and acrobatics which are more typically seen in juvenile chimps. But if you didn’t believe it before, you can believe it now…age really is just a number.
The chimps are typically happy and playful in the mornings and it’s one of my favorite times of the day with them. Well, boss lady Jamie can be a bit of a wild card, sometimes seemingly getting up on the wrong side of the nest, but even she is often in a lighthearted mood. Members of a chimp family will exuberantly greet one another after any length of separation and the chimps often include us humans in that so when we arrive in the morning they will often come over to offer us a greeting. (And sometimes they completely ignore us!). On the more boisterous mornings, Jamie wants us to don a pair of boots immediately and play a rare game of chase. Burrito sometime runs over with a play stomp ready for a raucous game of chase or tickle. If we’re lucky, Jody and Negra will sometimes run over and greet us with kisses or hand tickles (and if we’re not so lucky, a hand poke). Annie and Missy are often already engaged in a world of joy all their own, chasing, wrestling and laughing with one another. And Foxie is ready for a game of toss the troll or Dora with her doll du jour.
When I went in to say good morning today, Foxie ran into one of the front rooms and greeted me with a huge play face (notice only her bottom teeth are showing which is how chimpanzees smile). This started out innocently enough and then quickly progressed into both of us laughing wildly and jumping up and down like maniacs (’cause that’s what we do).
And then she took it to a whole other classic Foxie-level. She climbed up the caging, flipped upside down and continued to nod her head up and down and laugh hysterically with the biggest play face ever. From the photos, she looks a little wild and upset with all those chimp chompers showing, but trust me, it was nothing but fun and games, Foxie-style. Of course, I was doing much the same on the other side of the caging. Well, minus the hanging upside down bit – that’s all Foxie. (Excuse the poor quality of the photos, but there was a lot of action going on!):
One of Burrito’s favorite activities in the world is playing with his caregivers. Sometimes you can’t even walk by him without him stomping his foot and inviting you to play. This afternoon I caught him and volunteer caregiver Becca in a silly game.
