Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Primates

The Gator Tour of CSNW

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I had a bit of writer’s block today. It happens sometimes.

The weather was nice, though, and we finished the daily cleaning on time (sometime around 1pm when we regularly serve the chimpanzees their lunch). Some chimps were walking around the perimeter of Young’s Hill with Katelyn (on the outside of the fence, of course) and Chad had just returned from feeding the cattle and mucking their barn. With things settled and quiet around the Chimp House, I decided to drive around the property to capture some photographs of the scenic landscape. The pastures and woods that surround the facility have started to turn emerald green and are even speckled with the first yellow and purple wildflowers of the season.

One thing that is missing from the sanctuary right now is the extended team of people who would normally be enjoying the onset of spring along with us. We typically have fifty volunteers and interns who show up for rotating shifts, and many of them are like family to us. We are following a strict quarantine protocol and are operating with just the core staff, leaving us with just a fraction of the usual personnel. In terms of caregiving, we’re doing just fine– the meals and meds are always served, the enclosures are always cleaned and the chimps are always engaged in one activity or another- but the facility still feels somewhat empty without the all the familiar individuals who help us to care for the chimps and their sanctuary home.

We’ve been working on other ways to keep our community informed and active. Although we aren’t open to the public and we don’t exhibit the chimps (or even the cattle, for that matter), sharing our work is a huge part of this sanctuary’s culture. While that certainly includes communicating special updates and highlighting noteworthy milestones, it also means illustrating the most simple and mundane aspects of life at CSNW. I thought you all might enjoy seeing this little piece of my day: an afternoon cruise around the sanctuary on the John Deere Gator.

Jojo Rabbit

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Jody has three nicknames that we frequently use when referring to her. “Jo” is the simplest and most common, but “JoJo” is the fun equivalent.

Every time I hear someone say the nickname Jojo, I think of two things. The first association is a song by Blind Pilot (a Portland-based folk band) that tells the story of a homeless man named Jojo. The song is called “The Story I Heard” and has a catchy melody that loops in my head whenever I see Jody’s kind, sweet face. It fits her perfectly.

The second thing that comes to mind, of course, is the Oscar-winning film Jojo Rabbit. (If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?) Jody, with her gentle demeanor and love of all things that grow, would make a very fine rabbit. In fact, Jody’s appropriate third nickname is “Farmer Jo” because of how eagerly she harvests food from the chimps’ outdoor habitat. Chimps are not strictly vegetarian by any means, but Jody would be quite happy if all we ever gave her were heaps of green vegetables to munch on.

That brings us to today’s holiday celebration: a feast and forage to celebrate Easter Sunday and the arrival of spring.

The day (which was lovingly sponsored by two amazing and generous supporters) began with the usual breakfast chaos and subsequent socialization. As Diana mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Foxie and Jody were just reunited with the group after receiving some medical attention and are getting back to their normal routines. Meanwhile, Jamie is dealing with a draining abscess but is otherwise acting like her usual self. She seemed to feel a bit better after Missy (“Dr. Missy”) gave her backside some much-needed grooming. After her appointment with Jamie, Missy proceeded to engage Burrito in a playful session of wrestling. Jamie “payed it forward” by giving Jody some T.L.C.

Jamie allows Missy (not shown) to groom her backside
Missy (right) plays with Burrito (left)
Jamie (right) and Jody (left) groom each other

Meanwhile, CSNW co-directors J.B. and Diana spent some time planting this past holiday season’s evergreen trees. They were previously kept in pots after being featured in the Christmas Day celebration and are now taking root amid the bamboo on Young’s Hill. Maybe they’ll survive, and perhaps even grow, if Farmer Jo doesn’t prune off too many of their branches.

Back in the Greenhouse, the chimps could see us scattering food in their outdoor enclosure and got really excited.

Negra (below) excitedly greets Annie (above)

Once all of the caregivers, vehicles and tools were safely out of the enclosure, we were finally able to let the chimpanzees go out and forage for their Easter lunch. Negra led the charge out of the Greenhouse and up the hillside, followed by her six companions. The chimps were ecstatic to find caches of carrots, beets, watermelon slices, chow biscuits, and brand new troll dolls.

Missy (front left), Jamie (right) and Negra (rear left) search for food on the hill
Burrito eats watermelon in the cabin as Jamie approaches
Annie surveys the landscape for more food
Missy tries to out-compete the others (and successfully evades the camera’s auto-focus) by using the firehose vines to get around
Annie climbs to the top of “The Escher” to find the cache of food on top

Chimpanzees have a strong sense of fairness and, without interfering with their social hierarchy, we make sure there is enough food to go around at each meal. Even so, each celebratory forage usually has one chimp who “wins” by collecting the largest amount of the most prized item. As you all may have guessed by now, Jojo Rabbit won today’s Easter forage.

Jody carries her prized carrots as Burrito trails behind

Farmer Jo decided immediately that carrots were the most valuable of all the foods. She sprinted past her companions and began filling her arms with the enormous orange carrots as if she was scooping up rolls of toilet paper at Fred Meyer. Before the others could even figure out what was hidden out there, Jody was making her way back to the Greenhouse with an armful of crunchy loot. The other chimps each found a carrot or two, but Jody had a whole bushel.

Jojo munches on a carrot and gazes out at the other chimps

It’s hard to believe that Jody was the star of the show today after she just had a toe amputated last week. If my description doesn’t quite do it for you and you would prefer to watch today’s Easter forage for yourself, J.B. spontaneously streamed it live on our Facebook page so that all of our supporters could share the experience with us and the chimps. I highly recommend checking it out!

You may also be wondering how things went on the other side of the building. Mave, Willy B and Honey B had an exciting morning. For a short period of time, we opened the chute to their section of Young’s Hill so that they could have the opportunity to go outside. Per usual, they cautiously inspected their outdoor enclosure from the relative safety of the chute, although Honey B did roll a tire down the ramp and out onto the grass. She has developed a weird habit of noisily throwing large enrichment items through doorways, but that’s a story for another day…

Once the chute was closed back up, the three chimps enjoyed a hearty lunch and delicious dinner coupled with quick sessions of positive reinforcement training that allowed caregiver Chad to record their temperatures. It also marked the first time that they appeared interested in eating hard-boiled eggs (collected from locally-raised chickens, of course). Honey B and Willy B are now Easter eggs fanatics, although Mave doesn’t buy into the hype just yet.

Mave presents her forehead so Chad can take her temperature
Honey B devours a hard-boiled Easter egg

Jody may have won the day, but Jamie won the evening. It’s currently after 8pm and Jamie just finished scouring Young’s Hill for the remaining produce. Just a half hour ago, she found a whole beet that was still hidden in the foliage. She finally allowed us to close the door and is settling in for a good night’s sleep, so I’m closing up the Chimp House and heading home.

Jamie searches for food on the hill

Whether you celebrated today’s holiday or not, we hope that you had a great day. Stay healthy, everyone!

Picnic on the Hill

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For us chimpanzee caregivers, climbing on the wooden towers and platforms of Young’s Hill is almost as fun as watching the chimps do it themselves. Elevation, exercise and nature- That’s my style of social distancing.
 
Maybe I shouldn’t assume that the rest of the team enjoys it as much as I do. However, there is certainly something liberating about standing high above the Chimp House and looking over the surrounding farmland at the evergreen-covered hillsides of Upper Kittitas County. From this epic vantage, I get the same perspectives as the red-tailed hawks that circle over the valley and the bald eagles that watch over the Yakima River below. As Chad and I recently discussed while doing chores around the sanctuary (because we’re nerds who talk about animal welfare issues), several animal care guidelines now acknowledge that having surroundings that are aesthetically enriching can positively influence individual well-being. I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m proud that this sanctuary gives chimpanzees the opportunity to have such a dynamic sensory experience. It’s impossible to quantify the enrichment value of warm breezes, bright sunshine and green grass (what is enrichment, anyway?), but it would be naive to think that the chimpanzees don’t appreciate having these experiences in their lives.
With all that being said, the Hill isn’t just for looks. It is also incredibly useful for allowing the chimpanzees to spread out, survey the landscape, and exercise. Because of this, we often do “forages” on Young’s Hill (like yesterday’s, for example). Today’s was a special one, though, because the official enrichment theme was “Picnic Day.” The chimpanzees received an eclectic mix of checkered blankets and plastic drinking vessels alongside their usual provisions and toys. Of course, the most enjoyable part of the picnic experience seemed to be the food itself. First, Katelyn chopped up baby iceberg lettuce, red bell peppers, fresh cucumbers and vine tomatoes. Then, Chad and I walked around the Hill, placing and hiding small caches of food on each structure and landmark. The chimpanzees then had all afternoon to search for hidden food and take in the breathtaking scenery.
I had prepared a video to show you all how it went, but this rural internet is abysmal right now; according to the current upload speed, it will be hours before it is ready to watch. Instead, I will have to show you some photographs of Negra that Chad captured today.
Negra eats sunflower seeds during this morning’s post-breakfast indoor “picnic” (or, as I like to call it, Second Breakfast). Negra is a hobbit.
Neggie also foraged for lettuce and chow while participating in the afternoon’s outdoor activities. She did sit in the cabin, however (presumably to block the wind).
I’m not making any guarantees, but I will try to get the other video out sometime in the next week or two! 🙂
P.S. For those of you reading and following along, please continue to use caution, practice thorough social distancing, and take care of each other by taking care of yourselves! I’m wishing all the best for you and yours.

Is That For Here Or To Go?

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The Group of Seven have always intrigued me with each of their individual ways of eating. Some like to be upfront and center of every meal service. Others will grab their food and go.

This morning Negra wanted to take her banana to go onto Young’s Hill.

Almost immediately upon going onto Young’s Hill, she was instantly distracted by a passing train.

This is usually Negra’s M.O. She will almost always take her food to go. She will collect all her food and hold off on eating until she gets everything. Then she will use her hands, feet, mouth, you name it. Anything she can use to carry food to a location that is quiet and away from the majority of the crowd.  As evident with this photo I took a few weeks ago during lunch time.

Missy, Foxie, and Jody will grab one item from the meal service, take it away to a quiet location to eat, then return for the next item being served.

Depending on the food, Annie varies her method almost every meal. Sometimes she stays near where the meal is being served to ensure she gets her share of the meal. Other times she will find a quiet location as well, as she did during lunch today to eat her beets.

Jamie and Burrito, on the other hand, are usually upfront and center most of the time. They usually won’t leave until they are served their chow or nighttime bags.

Jamie, at times, might follow Negra’s lead and save some of her meal to enjoy later. In this case, she needed a proper dining table to finish her sweet potatoes and nighttime bag of seeds, popcorn, and dried fruit.

Sometimes after a meal, Jamie will invite a caregiver to go for a walk around the hill. Today, after lunch, Jamie wanted to go for a walk around the hill. I obliged and joined her. However, instead of a walk, it was a sprint around the hill. I somehow was able to capture a photo mid-sprint.

This went on for some time. Up the hill. Down the hill. Then back up again. Then back down. Usually I can keep up with her. But with our extra preventive measures to ensure both the chimpanzees and humans safe from the current pandemic, I have slowed down considerably. I going to have to start running sprints on my own with a mask on to ensure I don’t get that “I’m disappointed in you” look like she gave me as we returned to the Chimp House again.

A Tale of Two Barrels

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Yesterday, Diana wrote the blog about a routine only Jamie would have. As a dominant and strong-willed chimp who is usually an active participant in social drama, Jamie has a tendency to express herself by displaying in the Playroom.

The chute and Playroom are within sight of each other, allowing the chimps to interact with their neighbors (at a distance).

Today, Jamie kept up her steady pace by unleashing yet another raucous display on the residents of the sanctuary. She certainly had everyone’s attention.

To complement yesterday’s video, I tried my best to capture some still images of Jamie in action.

The Jamie Method:

Step 1: Acquire a noise-making object. A dirty barrels is perfect.
Step 2: Drum on the barrel and throw it across the room with force.
Step 3: Use the barrel as a pedestal to watch the neighbors react. Always have a Missy for backup.

Immediately afterwards, Burrito used the same barrel to observe the neighboring chimps. He had a much more friendly demeanor.

The Bubba Method:

Step 1: Greet the neighbors by bobbing your head and panting
Step 2: Sway back and forth to show off your muscles and all your super cool wooden toys
Step 3: Calmly go to a window that lets you quizzically stare at Mave and Willy B until they go back inside
Step 4: Always have a group of vigilant female chimps for backup

In the following hours, the seven original residents in Jamie and Burrito’s group sprawled out on the upper deck of the wooden structure in the Greenhouse.

Jamie groomed Jody while everyone else took a nap.

Perhaps they had forgotten that their neighbors had an identical barrel on the other side of the building, but they were soon reminded. The seven chimps were suddenly awoken by a chorus of hooting and drumming. The source of all this noise was Willy B. As a large and dominant male, Willy is tactful in his use of displays. He doesn’t overdo it like some brasher males I have met, but he certainly makes sure that his performances are explosive, timely and poignant. Mave and Honey B have a knack for getting out of his way whenever he begins to drum. Willy B may have won this battle of displays.

The Willy B Method:

Step 1: Drag the barrel to a doorway that is just a few inches smaller than that barrel
Step 2: Slam the barrel against the window
Step 3: Keep drumming.
Step 4: Drum some more.
Step 5: Top it all off with a loud scream.
Step 6: finish the day with a blanket nest on your favorite indoor bench

Willy’s display drew Jamie out onto Young’s Hill. From her vantage near the Greenhouse, Jamie could watch the chute for further activity.

 

Strange Times

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Outside of the sanctuary, there’s a lot going on right now.

Most of you are probably well aware of the uncertainty and trepidation surrounding COVID-19, and we have been altering our operations to ensure that this pandemic has no effect on the chimpanzees. If you’re wondering exactly how we are adjusting, I recommend reading this letter to our community that Diana sent out yesterday.

Obviously, we are doing our best to minimize the potential for pathogen transmission into the sanctuary while maximizing social distancing. Unlike many Washington state employers, however, we can’t just completely close down the office and have everybody work from home. Our staff needs to continue providing the chimpanzees with healthy meals, engaging activities, secure enclosures and clean surroundings, albeit now with a much smaller team of personnel than we are accustomed to. That’s okay, though. Our core team is pretty good at this caregiving stuff, and we don’t think the chimps have noticed that there are unprecedented measures being taken across the globe in response to a new and unusual coronavirus.

Today, I took some time after lunch to observe the chimpanzees as they foraged, relaxed, socialized and exercised. I also casually took some photographs to share with you all.

I always find that watching them go about their day is grounding and encouraging, and I am proud that we can continue to offer them a peaceful sanctuary home even in the strangest of times. Stay mindful, everyone.

Jamie patrolling the Hill
Missy’s eyes, gazing across the Greenhouse
Honey B processing and consuming a handful of hazelnuts
Honey B eating hazelnuts that we scattered in a bin of wood chips
Jody lounging in the Greenhouse
Burrito (right) grooming with Jamie (left)
Missy’s fingers poking through the caging as she gestures for me to interact with her
Foxie napping while partially obscured from observation (and the camera’s auto-focus feature)
Missy cautiously looking around at her peers before beginning a grooming session of her own
Annie peering down at the camera lens from the top of the Greenhouse
Burrito looking around from a sheltered corner of the Greenhouse
Annie scanning the landscape of Young’s Hill from the raceway into the Greenhouse
Willy B eating pecans and walnuts that he found hidden in a tub of wood chips (Note: he later flipped and emptied the tub to find the rest)
Missy racing around the perimeter of Young’s Hill this afternoon (Update: I was driving the Gator but she still won)

Movement

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To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

– Jerry Seinfeld

The relationship between chimpanzees and their physical environment is complicated. In particular, the way that they move around and think about these spaces is impossible to fully understand, but it’s still very important to think about.

As some of you may know, free-living chimpanzees form loose communities that collectively inhabit contiguous areas of land called home ranges. These forested territories are expansive and it is rare to see all (or even most) of a community’s members in the same location at the same time. Instead, each community splits up into small subgroups, often referred to as parties. In such a system, each individual has the capacity to split from its current party, go solo, or join a new one at any time. These changes occur over the course of minutes, hours, days and even weeks, so that chimpanzees in the same community may go a fortnight without seeing each other or, conversely, may spend most of their time traveling together. Although the ability to transfer between different communities is limited to young adult females, all mature chimps can generally associate freely among their community’s subgroups.

The patterns in which individuals associate with one another across space and time are known in the scientific community as fission-fusion dynamics and are influenced by diverse biological factors such as resource availability, habitat quality, mating prospects, social ranks, individual personalities, community demographics, and the potential risk of violence. Even with all of these variables in the mix, there is one rule that governs chimpanzee society:

Each chimpanzee gets to make choices.

In captive settings, chimpanzees are subjected to space restrictions that inhibit their ability to move freely across the landscape. Historically, chimps were often housed alone in tiny steel cages that inhibited most, if not all movement. Today, many modern sanctuaries allow their chimpanzee residents to roam across large outdoor habitats. Even in the best of these controlled environments, however, there are always artificial barriers that limit where the chimpanzees can go. Therefore, we sanctuaries are challenged to securely contain chimpanzees while minimizing the effect that such confinement has on their overall experience.

Of course, the Chimp House at CSNW provides the chimpanzees with the security and comfort that comes with warmth, shade, cover, food, enrichment items, and so on. Critically, it also gives the chimpanzees the opportunity to move among several adjoined spaces at will. For example, as volunteer Miranda was serving today’s breakfast to the chimpanzees in the Greenhouse, Jody split off from the group and chose to sit alone in one of the adjacent indoor spaces for a short while. It was her choice to distance herself from the others, for whatever reason. Whether a primatologist would actually call this a fission event or not would depend on their parameters, since distinguishing emergent patterns from such complex social dynamics inevitably requires arbitrary rules. Even though it’s doubtful that Jody would care about the semantics of it all, she’s probably well aware of the benefits offered by the ability to move to a different space. Perhaps she even appreciates it.

Subjectively, it’s clear that the chimpanzees at CSNW associate in patterns that parallel the fluid communities of their wild counterparts. As evidence of this, we caregivers witness many moments of separation and reunion that occur dozens of times each day among all of the chimpanzees. Sometimes they are marked by dramatic greetings or observable tension, but most of these simple moments pass without conflict or celebration. It may seem mundane, but this constant flux is the foundation of chimpanzee society and is presumed by many behaviorists to be a key component of their welfare. I would even argue that freedom to choose one’s physical and social surroundings, along with protection from exploitation and abuse, is the most important aspect of sanctuary life.

Today, the chimpanzees were fissioning and fusioning (or is it fusing?) all over the place. It’s often challenging to predict where a chimpanzee will be at any given time, but those of us who spend a lot of time in the Chimp House do get a sense for their individual preferences. Each chimp seems to have their own favorite spots for each time of day, activity, or mood. Please enjoy the following photographs from today of the chimpanzees doing whatever they wanted to do, wherever they wanted to do it.

 

Missy swung up to the window shelf in the Greenhouse. The shelves are some of her favorite perches.
I tried to get a photograph of Honey B hanging out indoors with a pile of enrichment items, but she rushed the camera before I could get a shot.
Burrito was playfully stomping around the Greenhouse all morning.
Honey B was literally hanging around in the new wing of front rooms.
Willy B likes to take afternoon naps on the indoor benches.
Jody sat indoors for a bit as her companions enjoyed breakfast outside.
Mave came inside from the chute and rushed over to greet Willy B. Willy remained in one area while and Mave sat across the caging, and he eventually began to groom her backside. This behavior is somewhat perplexing since the open door is only a couple of feet away, but it’s not totally unusual for this group.