Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
While staff and volunteers were cleaning the greenhouse before breakfast this morning, Annie and Missy bided their time with a little wrestling.
And just because, here’s one of my favorite classic Annie and Missy play sessions from about five years ago.
Here’s to another five years of play faces and breathy laughter.
It’s Friend Friday! Okay, well, we may have made that up last week—but it turns out that it actually is a thing! So, we thought we’d keep the trend going and post about some friendships today.
This morning I got a video of rambunctious play between Foxie, Diana, and Burrito. At one point, Burrito turned toward Foxie and they started to play with each other. This is really important for their bonding, and we as caregivers tend to take a step back and let them play on their own. You’ll see in the video that Diana did just that. Later on, Jody joined in too, and started to play tug with Foxie. Foxie looked toward Diana to keep playing with her, but Jody was so insistent that Foxie play with her that Diana encouraged Foxie to direct her attention back to Jody.
This is a little bit longer than the videos I usually post, but the whole thing was so great I had a hard time cutting anything out. Enjoy, and please share on social media with the hashtag #FriendFriday!
Burrito can be a little intimidated by the other chimpanzees. Because of his social anxiety, he tends to play much more with his human friends than with his chimpanzee family, but he and Foxie have a special friendship (learn more about that here).
You may remember Diana’s post from last year about the interesting dynamic in the relationship between Jamie and Burrito. As it happens, Missy and Negra have a complicated relationship as well. When it comes to food, Negra is definitely more dominant and Missy will generally let her have whatever she wants, even if it is reluctantly. You might think that this dynamic would affect their friendship, but it doesn’t seem to, at least not in an obvious way. Missy doesn’t appear to hold a grudge against Negra for pulling rank and is just as happy to play with her as with her friend Annie when the opportunity arises.
It is interesting to note that a similar dynamic exists between Annie and Missy but in this case it is Annie that gives up her food at Missy’s request. So, I imagine it’s not just Missy and Negra or Jamie and Burrito that are complicated. Overall chimpanzee social relationships appear to develop much more complexity than a simple dominance hierarchy suggests.
Here is Negra taking one of Missy’s chow bags:
And here they are enjoying a play session together:
Foxie has her choice of play partners here at the sanctuary, from troll dolls to other chimpanzees to caregivers.
The weather in Cle Elum today finally has me convinced (and it seems like the chimpanzees as well) that Spring and Summer just might possibly be considering staying. It’s difficult to say definitively but there certainly seems to be a positive correlation between sunshine and play behavior here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Plenty of playful chimpanzees in residence today!
In the video below you’ll see two kinds of play, chimpanzee to chimpanzee, and chimpanzee to caregiver. If you watch the video with the volume turned up you can hear a perfect example of caregivers engaging in chimpanzee behaviors during filming. This is just one of the ways in which our staff and volunteers help to facilitate a healthy and happy home for the chimpanzees. To learn more about caregivers engaging in chimpanzee behaviors read about it here!
Just earlier this week I posted a video I caught of Foxie using exaggerated signals to get Negra to play with her. Today, it was Missy initiating the play with Foxie! And of course, Foxie couldn’t resist.
