Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Rayne

New Puzzles, New Challenges

by

Today’s blog is all about enrichment! We are so grateful to the many supporters who helped make it possible for us to purchase new enrichment and craft new food puzzles thanks their generous support during our Comfort and Joy online auction. Some of the donated supplies are still waiting to be turned in to their final form, so stay tuned for a future blog to share more. Today’s video and blog will highlight the newly made giant holey lids courtesy of Tricia M. and new troughs thanks to Kathleen C.!

I love watching the chimps meet a new challenge, and find their own ways to accomplish the task at hand. Some puzzles require a demo by the humans, but most of the time we let the chimps try on their own first. As you’ll see in the video, Honey B has come up with a very different approach to the new troughs. Honey B’s method comes as no surprise, and she accesses the treats in record time!

Below is Lucky showing off her mostly clean trough! We put sugar free strawberry pudding in the bottom, and tossed some pomegranate arils on top which stuck to the pudding, requiring that she use the bamboo stick in her hand (or a different tool) to get the pudding and pomegranate. These troughs are the perfect depth, as the chimps cannot simply use their fingers to reach the bottom, which encourages the use of a tool and engages them with the puzzle for more time. Lucky was the first to master her method, which Willy B and Terry also utilized. Sometimes we put seeds, cereal, or other non-sticky food items in the troughs, which they can access by tipping the trough towards themselves (or using the Honey B method!).

Below is a newly made giant holey lid, ready for it’s first use by the chimpanzees! I cut several holes into the large (brand new) trash can lid, and bolted a frisbee to the middle of the lid. The frisbee can easily be rotated to cover the different holes, thus allowing one chimpanzee to control access to the other holes in the lid. Peanut butter has been smeared on the back of the lid, around each of the holes. I created this with the intention of using it as a social enrichment device with Cy’s group as they continue to undergo their reintroduction. If you’d like to learn more about social enrichment, see here! The below photo is what the puzzle looks like from the chimps’ point of view.

This photo show the back of the puzzle with smeared peanut butter, and is what the humans see after hanging up the puzzle for the chimpanzees.

Willy B was the first to try out the new puzzle today. He quickly figured out how to access the peanut butter, and moved the frisbee slightly. When a conflict started in the group which required Willy B’s attention, Rayne was quick to seize her opportunity and worked on the puzzle for quite a while. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the chimps get to experience this new food puzzle, and hope to see them move the frisbee more intentionally in the future! Thank you again to Tricia M. and Kathleen C. for your generous gifts to the chimpanzees!

Busy Busy Busy

by

We have so much fun watching the chimps forage and open their new presents on Christmas! But as you can imagine, the next day it is a mess! Between the clean up of the party and shoveling snow it didn’t leave us with a lot of time in the chimp house. However, while the humans may have been busy, the chimps on the other hand, had a lovely calm day- eating snow, nesting, and watching a little bit of TV! I hope you all have a lovely relaxing day after Christmas too!

Here are a few pictures I was able to capture in between cleaning!

The handsome Cy:

Mr. Willy B:

Mave & Dora nesting and grooming:

Raynie:

Dora:

Rayne Gets a Gift

by

Today, Rayne’s group got to enjoy the Spring Rayne scarf from our Comfort and Joy online auction! I painted the original artwork for a different auction and was inspired by the one and only Rayne chimpanzee, as well as her outdoor habitat The Bray in all its spring glory. It is neat to see the painting re-imagined as a scarf, and especially one for the chimps to enjoy! While she may look serious in the pictures, I’ll have you all know she was playing with the scarf before I could get my phone out, then it was all business for the photographer! She was wrapping it around her hands and feet playfully, and I’m sure enjoying the soft texture of the fabric. Thank you so much to Grace C. for donating this scarf for the chimpanzees!

As a bonus, enjoy a photo of silly Cy!

Don’t forget that today is Giving Tuesday, an internationally recognized day of generosity. Your support will not only honor Jody, but also the direct care of chimpanzees at the sanctuary. And your gift can be doubled today, thanks to a generous donor! Click here for more.

First Snow of the Season

by

We got our first real snow of the season last night. The chimps were very content eating snow and nesting in a cozy warm nest, or in Honey B’s case a cozy table cloth. We can not tell you why, but she loves this table cloth! Speaking of comfort, there are just a few hours left in our third annual Comfort & Joy Quid Pro Throw Online Auction! We are still working to meet our goal and we need your help. Two exciting items were added this morning to round out the event! First, a personalized CSNW jacket for you that features the Cle Elum Seven’s favorite comfort & joy items. Second, a Fill the Fridge For the Holidays category! With the holiday season fast approaching, we need your help to fill the fridges and make this festive season extra special.

Thank you to everyone who has participated, your support is the backbone of the sanctuary! We couldn’t do what we do without every single one of you. Bidding ends at 6pm PT tonight (11/20/24), but keep an eye out for Bid Wars! Happy Bidding!

Honey B with her table cloth:

Rayne made a cozy nest on the bench:

And Lucky enjoyed one of her favorite things, GUM, though you can not tell in the pictures that she is chewing it:

Jamie enjoyed her snowy day with a cozy nest, a good pair of boots, and a show about wildlife:

Social Enrichment

by

If you are new to the blog, or missed some of our recent posts, we are currently going through the process of reintroducing the group of 9. Here are a few posts to get you caught up (here and here!). As a part of this process, we have been providing the reintroduced group with a social enrichment puzzle each day. We learned about the concept of social enrichment from our colleague Dr. Andrew Halloran, who visited the sanctuary in October, and provided us with some initial ideas for social enrichment puzzles we could create.

What is social enrichment? Social enrichment can be many things. The answer to this question is easier defined by focusing on the goal of social enrichment, which is to create an opportunity for the chimpanzees to positively and regularly re-establish their dominance hierarchy. In the wild, chimpanzees would come upon limited, high-value foods (like a fig tree) as a group, and have to navigate the ins and outs of their social hierarchy in order to access the food. The most dominant individual would be expected to get the best spot with the most figs, while others must navigate the social scene and where they fall in it to know where and when they will be permitted to access the food. The limited nature of the food source may encourage submissive and affiliative behaviors from lower ranking individuals wanting access to the high value foods. In our case, we have created large puzzles where multiple chimps can work on them at once, but the puzzle can be manipulated in such a way that one chimp can prevent another from accessing the desired foods.

As Enrichment Coordinator, I have been working to dream up new designs to add to our social enrichment program in addition to the designs Dr. Halloran provided, and it has been a fun challenge! You really get to be creative, and I’ve had fun re-purposing some supplies we had laying around the sanctuary to make new puzzles. Here are some of the new puzzles I made:

Above is a giant raisin board enrichment puzzle, which was made from a large cutting board and some smaller boards that rotate to allow access to the holes underneath them. The chimps have repeatedly outsmarted my design on this and simply lift the whole board up and suck the raisins out from the opposite side! I am troubleshooting that loophole still, as they do need to be able to lift the board some in order to get the raisins they push out through the back of the board with a chopstick.

Above is a treat board, which has holes drilled into it diagonally (that do not go all the way through the board), which we have filled with pudding. There are two firehose segments that can slide over the board to allow access to holes (and treats) that are currently covered up. The board is then attached to the caging by the eye screws on either end of it, so the chimps cannot take the firehose off of the board entirely.

The best part has been watching the social enrichment in use, and seeing the chimps first learn how to use a new puzzle (they needed a few demonstrations), and then successfully navigate the social dynamics at play to access the puzzle. In general, we have seen what we hoped and expected to see – Cy in control of the puzzles. Willy has at times gotten to the puzzle first because he came into the space first, but Cy has been dominating the puzzles once he arrives and Willy has either been accepting only getting a small amount of the puzzle (and treats from it), or has been moving away to wait for his turn once Cy is done. There have been a couple instances where Willy B seemed to get frustrated about his lack of access to the puzzle and started to display, which Cy has answered with displays of his own. In these instances where Willy B has displayed, the cycle has occurred several times until Cy and Willy eventually display and leave the area, and once Cy is gone, Willy quickly returns to work on the puzzle. Is he a genius, or just taking advantage of how the situation played out? We hope the use of social enrichment will continue to help Willy B find and understand his place within the social hierarchy of his group, both in the current grouping (which is Cy, Willy B, Rayne, and Lucky) and as we add more individuals. I know Honey B is more than ready to get her hands on some new puzzles!

Don’t forget to check out the Comfort and Joy auction! You could help me make more social enrichment for the chimps by bidding on the Giant Holey Lids (trash can lids that will one day become a new and exciting puzzle for the chimpanzees)!

The Matchmaker

by

We often describe Rayne as being socially savvy. She seems to have a special ability to understand the needs of her group mates—in particular, to recognize their limitations and vulnerabilities and adjust to them. This is especially evident in her interactions with Willy B but it’s true of all of her relationships to varying degrees. Rayne was the first to be added to the reintroduction group after Cy and Willy B’s week together in part because of this skill.

I share the video below to give you a sense of what this kind of social intelligence looks like in practice. I want to make it clear that interpreting chimp behavior is always a fraught exercise. We simply can’t get in their heads and thus I really don’t know what Rayne intended, if she intended anything at all. Perhaps I’m just telling myself, and now you, a story.

But it’s notable that since Rayne was added to the group, Cy and Willy B have been spending a lot more time grooming one another. Mr. Aloof and Mr. Awkward, brought together by a common interest in dominance, a shared fondness for female swellings, and a good friend that, subtle though she may be, seems to know what she’s doing.

Don’t forget about our Comfort & Joy Online Auction, going on now! You can bid on dozens of items to bring comfort and joy to the chimps and to yourself. Do you know what would bring me comfort? And maybe even a little joy? Replacing the components to our driveway entrance gate that were recently stolen and installing additional security measures to prevent future thefts. We’re about a third of the way there as I write this—thank you!

Rayne Joins the Men

by

J.B. explained our reintroduction experiment last week, and I thought I would do a follow up today since we moved on to the next step.

As a duo over the last week, Cy and Willy B did not interact a whole lot, which is not shocking since they are both somewhat aloof. What we were waiting for was a day when they did three things: played, groomed for at least ten minutes, and used a new social enrichment puzzle.

Throughout the week, we were monitoring pretty closely, often using the security cameras, for signs of who took the lead. It was clearly Cy, with Willy B deferring to him throughout the week. It has been a lot quieter this past week without Willy B getting everyone going in the afternoons. It’s possible he will still be inclined to do this as the group gets bigger. He did make some attempts throughout the week, but because he was separated from the larger group, they did not have the same level of anxiety or feel the need to respond in the same way that intensified the situation and ended up in conflict.

This morning, I watched on the cameras as Willy B displayed toward the other group, and then I watched as Cy took over the display, with Willy B retreating. This seemed to serve to remind everyone that he outranks Willy B. It’s nice to see Cy express confidence in this way, and we hope he keeps it up as we add more chimps.

Rayne is the second chimpanzee to add because she is the highest ranking female in the group and therefore supports Cy in his leadership role. She also has been able to develop a positive relationship with Willy B and generally isn’t as intimidated by him as some of the lower ranking females in the group. So, the idea is that Willy B will continue to develop his relationships with Cy and Rayne and understand, without having the back-up of Mave and Honey B, that he is definitely subordinate to Cy, and, in fact, that’s really the best place for him and for the group.

Speaking of… we have created some fun groups for the friendship bracelets that we have in the Comfort and Joy online auction! These bracelets were made by two young ladies – Holly and Juliet – who came along with their parents on a vacation to Cle Elum while their veterinarian mom, Dr. Kathleen Olson, filled in for Dr. Erin while Erin was away a few weeks ago. They (the bracelets and the whole Olson family) are so sweet! Check them out, and be sure to check the auction every day, as we’ll be adding more items!

When I was closing up, I spied Honey B who had tucked herself into her nest, the epitome of comfort: