Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Jamie is always trying to help us get our jobs done the right way. Sometimes she helps scrub the mesh fencing for us, other times she wipes the floor down. She monitors us while we clean, almost as if she is there to make sure we are doing it right!
Yesterday I caught her doing something new: holding down one of the water spigots. I’m not really sure why she was doing it, but it went on for quite awhile! Jamie wasn’t being very environmentally friendly… but she was helping us flush the drain.
Look who managed to bring in the biggest haul from the lunch forage today! Cabbage, celery, carrots, and green beans never looked so good.
Burrito is known for is love of food, but there is one thing that has an even greater power to capture his attention…
Girls.
Specifically, tumescent girls.
Female chimpanzees have a menstrual cycle that is very similar to humans, but with one important difference: they advertise their fertility. Throughout their 36-day cycle, changes in hormone levels cause visible changes in the skin of the anogenital region. As they approach ovulation, this area swells and the skin becomes taut and pink, a condition known as tumescence. Male chimpanzees find this very attractive and the tumescent females find themselves at the center of a lot of male attention.
The females’ swellings have great power over the males, like an invisible tractor beam pulling them along. During the lunch forage today, Burrito got so distracted that he barely picked up any food.
Normally, males would mate more often with the tumescent females. But Burrito doesn’t exhibit normal mating behavior. And sadly, this isn’t all that uncommon in captive chimpanzees.
Many chimpanzees born in laboratories are taken from their mothers shortly after birth, either because their mothers aren’t taking proper care of them (they themselves were probably stolen from their mothers), because hand-reared chimpanzees are seen as easier to manage, or because the labs intend on breeding the mother again shortly (the normal birth interval for chimpanzees is about 5 years, but if the baby is taken away the mother will enter into estrus again within months). Laboratory born chimpanzees are also denied the opportunity to grow up in a traditional social setting, where they would learn from family members, other adults in the community, and their peers.
The result of this unnatural upbringing is a chimpanzee that is culturally adrift and frequently frustrated. Not only do chimpanzees like this lack a knowledge of societal customs and traditions, but even basic biological functions are left undeveloped without opportunities for social learning.
Maybe Burrito doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He finds other ways to deal with his urges, and life goes on. But it is a daily reminder that so much was stolen from these chimpanzees that they can never recover.
One of our guest bloggers, Dr. Sheri Speede, has a great new book released today called Kindred Beings: What Seventy-Three Chimpanzees Taught Me About Life, Love and Connection. Be sure to check it out! Sheri will be doing a book signing tour, and will be stopping in nearby Seattle on October 10th at the Elliott Bay Book Company. We’ll post reminders about the book signing on our Facebook page—you definitely don’t want to miss the chance to meet with Sheri.
You might recall Sheri’s post on Jacky. Here’s an excerpt from her new book about a chimpanzee named Nama.
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Sheri Speede’s first interaction with adult female chimpanzee Nama, who was tethered by a five foot chain around her neck for 16 years . . .
As I walked slowly within her reach, she took my arm, and I allowed her to pull me in close to her. I sat down beside her in the wet dirt, trying to avoid the diarrhea. She looked at my face curiously for a few moments, glancing at my eyes but not really looking into them. She was inspecting me, rather than trying to communicate. After a minute or two, her hand hovered in front of my face, and she began smacking her mouth open and closed rhythmically. Understanding that she was about to groom me reassured and relaxed me, but her fingers on my face were not really so gentle. She was digging at the corners of my eyes in a way I didn’t enjoy. I turned my face away. When I looked back at her, she perused my face again briefly, and then tried picking my nose with a finger that smelled of feces. I turned away again. I clacked my own mouth and tried to groom her face, but she didn’t like it either. She turned her head to escape my hand as I had done with hers. This wasn’t going perfectly.
Finally, when I lowered my hands to groom her chest, she pushed her shoulders back and straightened her neck to give me good access. I moved both my hands over her chest the way I thought another chimpanzee would—parting the grayish hairs, flicking off dirt particles, gently scratching at blemishes on skin stretched tautly over easily discernable ribs. After about 10 minutes, Nama lowered her head and returned her chest and shoulders to normal posture. When I looked up to see what she wanted to do next—not more face grooming, I hoped—her eyes were seeking mine with a desire to communicate that startled me. While she held my gaze, she took my right hand and placed it purposefully on the chain around her bony neck, rubbed bare of hair by the shackle. Her lower lip hung open, and her eyes were steady, beseeching. She was requesting the freedom she needed most of all and was expecting no less than simple action as an answer from a friend. All I could give her was a promise that she couldn’t understand, although I meant it with all my heart.
“Nama, I will take that chain off of you, just as soon as I am able to. I will never rest a single day until I do.”
Nama on her chain she wore for 16 years. Photo © Sheri Speede.
Niete and Nama (standing on right) greeting each other at Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center. Photo © Agnes Souchal.
Pick up a copy of Kindred Beings today!
I decided to do a little retrospective of the blog today and found the posts around this time for the last five years. It’s interesting what’s changed, what’s remained the same, and what’s entirely different.
Today I posted this photo on Burrito’s Facebook page and described him as handsome:
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And today volunteers Lynn and Patti staffed our booth at PAWSwalk. I worked in the chimp house with Debbie and Keith stopped by for a visit this afternoon with some friends.
Five years ago today, I posted about Keith and I staffing the PAWswalk booth and I posted a photo of handsome Burrito:
Today was a drizzly day, but that didn’t stop Jamie from going all around the hill four times – twice with me and twice with volunteer Keri. On her fourth trip around, Jamie ran the whole way. She got pretty wet from the rain, but didn’t seem to mind at all.
It was drizzly four years ago at this time too, so toothbrushes were the rainy day enrichment.
Three years ago we had the ingenious idea to fill troll dolls with treats and freeze them. We’ve probably done this 50 times since then. I love Jamie’s somewhat frustrated initial reaction:
Two years ago Young’s Hill was almost but not quite complete, and we were speculating about whether the chimpanzees might be hesitant to walk into the great wide open space.
And one year ago, we posted this in-depth story that KOMO news did about the fire that burned the grass on Young’s Hill and damaged the caregiver house on the property:
A while back, we told you about Annie’s habit of washing her face.
I finally managed to catch it on video. Whether she’s actually cleaning herself or she just finds it refreshing, we can’t really say. But it is fairly unique.
The chimps all have different ways of interacting with the natural world. Jamie seems to revel in the opportunities that nature provides. If the rest of the gang would join her, she’d stay out all day hiking, climbing, exploring. There is territory to defend and there are squirrels to hunt (she hasn’t caught one outside yet, not for lack of trying).
Unfortunately for Jamie (but fortunately for the deer), some parts of nature will always be out of reach. When that happens, the best you can do is sit back and observe.
Jody loves being outside in the natural world, but sometimes she’d rather take hers to go. Every day, she breaks off a piece of bamboo and drags it inside so that she can enjoy it from the comfort of the greenhouse. To each her own.
