Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

primate protection

Happy faces

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Did I mention that I love Jamie-ween’s Hallo-Birthday at CSNW? As if The Great Pumpkin and all the treats in the Playroom weren’t enough, volunteers Stephanie and Katelyn carved mini pumpkins and filled them with various fruits and veggies (cucumbers, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, etc) for the chimps’ lunch forage in the greenhouse. I think the chimps were already stuffed at that point, but they enjoyed them none the less! Needless to say, no one, not even Burrito, was interested in dinner.

The carved mini pumpkins:

If you take a closer look at the photo above, you might noticed that one of the pumpkins has a “CS” on it. And you may notice that in the photo below, Burrito’s carved pumpkin has a “W” on it. It was impossible to really get a good photo of the whole thing, but it says CSNW. Stephanie is so creative.

They also carved faces into melons:

Jamie:

Jody:

Foxie looks like she’s mimicking the face of hers

What a great day. Thanks so much to Stephanie, Katelyn, Tamela, Dick and Robbi for all the awesome gifts and decorations for the party and to all of those who donated in honor of Jamie’s big day! You guys are the BEST!

Today’s choices

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Today the day started out kinda rainy and so the chimps stayed in the front rooms while we cleaned the playroom. I caught an unusual duo wrestling—Negra and Annie! Annie does not always play with folks other than her best friend Missy, and Negra doesn’t play as often as the other chimps. So it was really awesome to see the two of them engaging in so much fun. I wasn’t able to get a lot of good video of it, but I did catch a brief snippet.

Later in the day the sun was out and Young’s Hill was the place to be. Everyone but Negra came out at one point, and even after Burrito went back inside the other girls hung out for a bit longer. It was great to see five chimps out on the hill all at once. In the last piece of this video, you’ll be able to see all five in the same shot.

Tomorrow we’re celebrating Jamie’s birthday on Halloween. It’s not too late to donate to make her party really great!

Greeting

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Chimpanzees give each other really sweet greetings after they’ve been separated for some amount of time. Jody spent all afternoon on the hill yesterday by herself, and when she started heading back Annie was getting pretty excited. I didn’t catch a very long video, but I did get a quick snippet of Annie’s sweet greeting with Jody. I wanted to include some explanations of Annie’s greeting behaviors, so you may have to watch the video twice!

Typically less-dominant individuals greet more-dominant members of a group. Although Jody isn’t the leader, she is more dominant than Annie (although Annie is definitely asserting herself and has much more confidence these days than she did when they first arrived). In the video, you’ll see Annie bipedally (up on her feet) swagger with her hair standing on end (pilo erect). These behaviors are indicative of a high arousal state, basically meaning she’s excited. Then you’ll see her crouch down and run toward Jody. The crouching down is a sign of submission, and it shows Annie’s respect for Jody. When she contacts Jody she gives her a hug and simultaneously offers an open mouth kiss (it’s hard to see, but that is what she’s doing!) And finally as they head back into the greenhouse together, Annie dabs Jody’s back.

Even though this all occurred in just 15 seconds or so, there’s a lot of communication going on! Chimpanzees are really amazing and complex beings.

Most Vigilant Person

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I am officially giving the MVP award to Foxie, who has been making it farther and farther everyday on Young’s Hill. She’s gotten some encouragement and motivation from her friends, but today I put out some pieces of pineapple as a forage, and that seemed to be enough incentive for her to make it almost twice as far as she’s gone in the last few weeks! She made it almost all the way to the first platform. Yay, Foxie!

 

Cirque du Soleil at CSNW

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Foxie is our resident acrobat here at the sanctuary. She’s always hanging upside down or doing pirouettes, and loves to engage us in active games where she will do all sorts of different gymnastics. Jamie, as many of our regular blog readers know, is the resident trickster—it’s appropriate that her birthday is on Halloween (just a couple weeks away!)

Watch Foxie being a goof and wait for Jamie to interrupt…

 

Jamie chases Jacki-gator

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Today I was watching the chimps running around on the hill. Jamie and Missy were way in the distance. Missy was sitting on the log bridge up top and I couldn’t even see Jamie! Jody was sitting under the hammock and Foxie was running out and then back in over and over. Jackie hopped into the Gator (our farm utility vehicle) to try and find Jamie, and Missy started to play chase with her. Missy gave up quickly but Jamie was way more excited about it.

Sometimes when we play chase with the chimps, they will fake us out—meaning they will run one direction and then abruptly turn and go the other direction, and we have to try and catch up to them. Well, this is a lot harder to do when you have to turn around a Gator on a steep hill! You’ll see Jamie playing this “fake out” game with Jackie in the beginning of the video.