Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

rescue

Doll Thief

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Jamie and Foxie had a pretty epic play session while we were cleaning the playroom this morning. A few things to note about this video:

  • Everyone was playing all morning – this is just a small slice of all the craziness.
  • I love how Jamie shows Foxie how to get this game started – “Here, I’ve got your doll and you’ve got to try to get it back!”
  • If you ever question whether chimpanzees are stronger than humans, try hanging from the ceiling for 10 minutes and let me know how that works out.
  • Jamie employed a new move in this play session, which I have dubbed “The Motorcycle”. See if you can spot it.
  • Jamie is 43 years old and seems to have unlimited energy. I am 43 years old and would like a nap. I don’t know how they do it.

Oh, and I’ve got some good news to share – we’d like to thank the Glide Foundation, and all of you who donated this past year, for helping us purchase our very own portable digital x-ray machine! As you may know, we have been fortunate to be able to borrow an x-ray unit as needed from a generous local veterinarian, Dr. Kellar, but with additional chimpanzees on the way we knew it was time to have one of our own. Not an easy decision when you are talking about something the price of a nice new car, but we consider it a necessary investment in the health of our growing family and we’re so grateful that you all made it possible. We’d also like to thank our friends at Project V.E.T.S. for sending along some gently used radiation protection equipment to keep our staff and consulting medical professionals safe!

Human Problems

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Earlier, Diana and I were discussing how serving meals to the Seven has changed over the years. It used to be that you would grab the first course – tomatoes, for example – and serve each chimp his or her portion until that course was done. Then you’d move on to the next course. It’s not that they never became impatient but there was at least a logical and orderly process. But the chimps have turned everything upside down. Missy now has to eat her tomatoes first. Negra, on the other hand, has to have her chow first. Meanwhile, Jamie is going to have her leeks first and that’s not a request that’s an order. It’s not just a simple matter of preference – if they don’t get their desired food first, it’s a full-on hunger strike. So now we’re just grabbing food from this bowl and that bowl amidst a frenzy of Bronx cheers and spit. Sometimes I feel like it’s my first day as a waiter in a busy restaurant. OK, Table 2 wants water with no ice, Table 6 wants a large salad but in two small bowls, Table 9 is still waiting for their entree, and wait…was it no ice or extra ice for Table 2??

I used to be able to write down exactly who ate what and how much, but now it’s all a blur. Today’s log:

Lunch:

Chimps ate food.

Perhaps it has less to do with the chimps and more to do with the natural affects of aging on the brain. But I swear, somehow the Californians are even pickier! The problem over there is that Willy B can be a bully at mealtimes and Honey B is the Slowest Eater On The Planet. The number one rule for lower-ranking chimps is to consume your food as fast as possible. But Honey B doesn’t play by anyone’s rules. And who are you calling low-ranking, anyway? By the time Willy B is done and starting to get antsy, she’s still sitting on a pile of food just licking a piece of fruit and staring into your eyes.

Of course, these fall into the category known by the chimps as “Human Problems”, which as you might guess, are of no concern to them. As it should be.

A visit from a friend

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You’ve probably heard by now that several members of a gorilla troop at the San Diego Zoo began exhibiting respiratory symptoms and later tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. This is a moment that we’ve all been fearing, and to a large extent expecting, since the pandemic began. From what we know, the gorillas’ symptoms are still mild and zoo officials are hopeful that they will fully recover. But there’s so much we still don’t know about the pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 in nonhuman apes.

The coronavirus isn’t the first airborne pathogen transmitted by humans to threaten the health of captive apes. Historically, one of the greatest concerns for captive ape populations has been tuberculosis, which is why most facilities, including CSNW, require staff and volunteers to be tested at least annually and avoid the sanctuary when exhibiting any new respiratory symptoms. But in rare cases, even something as seemingly innocuous as the common cold can have devastating effects on other apes, as we saw in the death of an otherwise healthy chimpanzee at the Lincoln Park Zoo in 2009. Incidents like this, and the lingering unknowns surrounding COVID in great apes, have led most institutions to further strengthen the precautions they take to protect the apes in their care. In the case of the gorillas at the San Diego Zoo, there’s nothing at all to suggest that a lack of adequate precautions contributed to the transmission. But it’s a stark reminder that we cannot let our guard down too soon.

Like our colleagues, we’re still doing what we can to protect the chimps from COVID based on the best information available. We wear masks at all times and don scrubs, gloves, and boots when around the chimps and when cleaning their enclosures or handling food and enrichment. We take the chimps’ temperatures as well as our own each morning. We’ve invested in several commercial air scrubbers, which have been shown to help filter the air of large airborne particles that may contain the virus. And we rely on a mix of natural ventilation via open doors and windows and our industrial ventilation systems to maintain fresh air in the building. We’re always thinking about what more we could do but there’s just no way to isolate captive apes from their human caregivers entirely.

One of the most difficult changes we had to make as a result of the pandemic, both for the staff and the chimps, was suspending our intern and volunteer program. Only two volunteers, Patti and Lisa, were able to meet our strict criteria for COVID precautions in their lives outside of the sanctuary, and we and the chimps are incredibly lucky to have them. But the chimps are missing many of their other friends.

Thankfully, spring-like weather has made socially distanced walks around the hill possible all winter long for our other local volunteer caregivers. And now, with our new building, we have several locations where the chimps’ friends can visit with them through glass without sharing the same air space. Long-time staff member turned volunteer, Elizabeth, came by this afternoon to see her chimp friends. Everyone was so excited to see her – Burrito even did his happy dance.

As COVID continues to challenge us all, we’re thankful for bright moments like these.

Honey B eagerly waits in the medical enclosure for Elizabeth to enter the new building
Honey B always gazes directly into your eyes
Mave saves her gazing for special occasions
The gang of seven heads out on a walk with an old friend
Burrito and Elizabeth walk off into the sunset

The stories we tell

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Every picture tells a story, but not always the one we intended.

We’ve written before about a 2011 study which found that attitudes about chimpanzee conservation were influenced by how chimpanzees are portrayed in the media. When participants viewed images manipulated to show chimpanzees alongside humans or in human settings, they were less likely to think that chimpanzees were endangered. While any interpretation of the study should be tempered by its inevitable limitations and lack of replication (to date/that I know of), it suggests that the use of chimpanzees in TV, film, and advertising harms wild chimpanzee populations by suppressing public concern for their conservation status. And by portraying chimpanzees as tractable, it may also help drive the trade of chimpanzees in the pet industry.

The results of this study are potentially quite profound and should serve as serve as yet another reason to end the unconscionable exploitation of chimpanzees and other primates in entertainment. But the implications are not limited to the entertainment industry; indeed, the authors suggest that their findings could even apply to images of field researchers working closely with their study subjects. It would stand to reason, then, that certain images from zoos and sanctuaries could elicit a similar response – images that show chimpanzees dressed in clothing or playing with children’s toys, for example. Which means that in promoting our work, we could be inadvertently harming our own cause.

I mention all of this not because I think there’s a simple lesson for sanctuaries like ours to draw from that study, though it did prompt us to engage in some difficult self-reflection. Instead, I think it illustrates just how complicated it can be to share the lives of those in our care. Because an image tells more than one story, and conservation is not our only concern. I am equally concerned about the whitewashing of captivity.

 

Earlier, I was out taking photos on this rainy but delightfully mild December morning. The chimps were patrolling the hill, walking through the bamboo groves, and climbing high atop the structures to survey the surrounding valley. When I got back to the chimp house I sifted through the photos to choose a few for the blog.

The chimps look as if they are free.

Every time we post to the blog or to social media, we make a choice about how to portray the chimps. There’s every incentive to give people what they want to see – chimps playing, walking outdoors, climbing trees – and to move the camera swiftly past whatever makes us uncomfortable. Showing chimps behind caging upsets some on social media. When chimps are shown laying on concrete floors, people think they are sad or bored. There’s certainly a deliberate, almost cynical aspect to this on our part. After all, LOOK HOW BORED OUR CHIMPANZEES ARE! is not a brilliant marketing strategy for a nonprofit. But it’s more than that. We as caregivers have those same unconscious preferences. But caging, concrete, and bullet-proof glass are all part of captivity, and we should know better. I guess even we want to believe sometimes.

Oftentimes the chimps have access to a two-acre habitat but still hang out by the caging inside to watch the humans work.

Beyond how they live, there’s also the matter of who they are. The chimpanzees in our care are not wild, nor could they be at this point in their lives. They carry troll dolls and cowboy boots, build giant nests from fleece blankets, and wear fanny packs. They drink warm tea from cups and insist that their carrots be peeled. At times they prefer the company of humans over that of their fellow chimpanzees. They are messy and complicated, fully chimpanzee but also not quite – a result of traumatic histories, for sure, but also an inevitable product of captivity. Ignoring the human-like aspects of their personalities ignores the very essence of their being.

Honey B, delighted with her new apron.
Burrito, accessorizing with a fire hose scarf.

Sometimes I worry what effect our collective obsession with minimizing captivity has on animals. I’m concerned about what the faux naturalization of so many zoo exhibits, with their trees fenced off with hot wire and their concrete and metal walls painted to resemble forests, makes people think (or not) about how it feels to live within them. I wonder if our own reluctance to show caging and concrete in photos fuels the false notion that chimpanzees in sanctuaries are now living happily ever after. And I fear that if we censor ourselves too much, we risk diminishing the very individuals whose stories we are trying to tell.

Reconciling these various concerns is not easy. We made a concerted effort a while back to share fewer photos that show the chimps wearing clothing. It may be cute or funny, but it generally does little to advance the chimps’ cause and, as we have seen, may have unintended consequences. That said, if the clothes-wearing is incidental to some other activity or if it helps highlight the value of enrichment or tell a story about a chimp’s personality, then perhaps it has a place. Would you understand Honey B or Burrito at all if we didn’t share all of their peculiarities? And we try not to let caging, or concrete, or the size of the enclosure that the chimps have chosen to be in at the time dictate which aspects of their lives get shared. We shouldn’t intentionally promote a fantasy.

I hope this doesn’t sound too sanctimonious because I am constantly censoring the photos I share to tell a story – or in some cases to avoid a story. You may have noticed in Wednesday’s post that Jamie has been picking more of the hair from her belly. We don’t know why. Sometimes these self-directed behaviors are old habits, unconnected to a chimpanzee’s current state, but they can indicate stress. I’m sure I’ve scrapped a photo because of how prominently it displayed her growing bald patch, not wanting to broach the subject at that moment. In any case, caring for chimpanzees is difficult and not always straightforward, and that should be part of the conversation, too.

In the newspaper world, there’s a phrase that says a journalist’s job is to uncover “the best obtainable version of the truth.” I like this phrase because it acknowledges limitations without rejecting an objective reality. Zoos and sanctuaries are in the PR business, not journalism, which imposes its fair share of limitations. But perhaps we can at least aim for a better version of the truth.