Mave and her family celebrated her 34th birthday today with a forage that included young coconuts. Initially, Mave did not get her own coconut but after some time foraging her best friend Dora placed an extra one by Mave’s side. Did she mean to offer it to Mave or did she simply not object when Mave picked it up? Either way, Dora is a good friend and it was the perfect gift.
rescue
Play All Day
Grooming with Terry
Chimpanzee grooming vocalizations fall into a few broad categories. Generally speaking, you’ve got your teeth clackers, your lip smackers, and your raspberry blowers. But within those categories, every chimp’s vocalization is unique. Some are quiet, with the lips just barely touching as if they are whispering. Others are quite loud – I can often hear Willy B’s teeth clacking during the morning grooming sessions through the security camera system audio.
Each chimpanzee has a different style of grooming, as well. Terry likes to do two things: 1) gently brush your skin with his fingers, and 2) try to pull individual hairs out of your arm. Our safety rules prohibit us from allowing the chimps to use two hands while grooming us, so Terry is forced to try to pluck our hairs by grasping them between his index and middle fingers. Luckily for us, it’s not very effective.
For chimps like Terry, grooming seems to be more about spending quality time with chimp and human friends. For Honey B, on the other hand, it’s all about picking scabs and drawing blood. She gets frenzied when she sees something to pick at, and she will continually direct you to turn your arm or present a different body part until she finds something good. I actually feel bad disappointing her when I haven’t injured myself recently. Honey B is the reason why we sometimes turn around and wonder how someone got in a fight without us hearing a sound. Where did all those wounds suddenly come from? Turns out Dr. Honey B was on duty and she opened every nearly-healed scrape and scab on one of her friends!
I wish chimpanzees were always as gentle as Terry is in this video as he tries to shoo away the third wheel at his grooming party.
Perimeter Patrol Parkour
While the caregivers were preparing breakfast, Burrito and his family set out on their first patrol of the day.
Sometimes patrolling is serious business, like when there are strangers on the property or unusual animal noises coming from the hillside above. But most are a more laid back affair, with the object being to enjoy some fresh air, climb as many structures as possible along the way, and, occasionally, grab the feet of the person ahead of you.
In this video you can see Burrito selecting his stick of the day, which he then carries back with him to the chimp house. I remember working for days to clean up all of the slash debris from the trees we cut down to create the extended fence line. Thank goodness I gave up trying to get it all. Clearly these are some great sticks! Ultimately, these end up along with Jamie’s library of well-worn-but-still-clean-enough-to-keep books on the windowsill between the playroom and the kitchen.
A Natural History of Jerks
Male chimps can be jerks. True, females can also be jerks (see: Chimpanzee, Jamie), and not all males are jerks (at least not all of the time). There is an exception to every rule. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that chimpanzee jerkishness has a certain maleness to it, just as chimpanzee maleness contains a certain jerkishness.
But just as not all male chimps are alike, so too is it true that not all jerks are alike. While this is by no means an an exhaustive examination of the topic, here we will distinguish between two types of jerk: Those jerks who wreak havoc blindly, as if possessed, and those who inflict their jerkiness with forethought and intention.
To illustrate the former, let’s turn to our dear friend Willy B. Today I watched him sit peacefully in the shade beneath a climbing structure on the Bray, his 2-acre habitat, surveying the yard for remnants of a the day’s forage. When the forage was finished, he quietly returned to the indoor enclosures. It being mid-afternoon, however, this peaceful Dr. Jekyll was suddenly and inexplicably transmogrified into a raging Mr. Hyde. Apropos of nothing and with no other chimps in sight, he began to bang on the food chute with the back of his wrist. The noise and vibration shattered the calm of the afternoon and soon the others were up from their naps. With hair on end, they circled each other in the confines of the front room area. Some began to pant hoot, which in turn raised the tension in the room even further. Minutes went by. The banging was incessant. Others began to stand bipedally and swagger. Bang, bang, bang. The noise swelled and soon came to fully occupy the space where thoughts would normally occur, making it impossible to do anything but join in the chaos. Bang, bang, bang…
BANG! A fight breaks out. The swirling mass of chimpanzees, now screaming, races from the front rooms through the chute and out to the Bray. Willy B climbs to the top of the tower and, with a fear grimace, watches as the other chimps threaten and hit one another. But he is not angry. Instead, he is scared and confused. Because he is once again Dr. Jekyll, wondering what on earth could have caused such tumult below.
Interestingly, this fight contained within it, and was indeed amplified by, the actions of our second type of jerk. Are you familiar with the admonition, common in both comedy and politics, to never punch down? For male chimpanzees, punching down is not only accepted in certain circumstances but is in fact a right of passage. As Craig Stanford states in The New Chimpanzee,
[Adolescent male chimpanzees] don’t submissively pant grunt to one another, and dominance among them is hard to discern. But once a young male reaches adulthood, he begins to climb to higher rank by taking on and intimidating each adult female. When he has risen in status above the most dominant female, the young male finds himself at the bottom of the male dominance network. Only time and repeated jousts with higher-ranking males will determine his ultimate highest status. (p.42-43)
According to some researchers, adolescent male chimpanzees routinely harass adult females as a low-cost way method of honing their competitive skills before testing them in the much riskier world of male competitive dominance. Gordo is well beyond adolescence, but his actions are often reminiscent of a chimpanzee stuck permanently in the liminal space between the female and male hierarchies. While size does not dictate rank, his more diminutive stature makes it unlikely that would challenge Cy, Terry, or Willy B directly. His social skills are of little help, either. He is able, however, to dominate Honey B. Usually.
As the dust on the Bray began to settle, the chimpanzees worked their way through the chute and back to the greenhouse. The screams had subsided and all that remained was Honey B’s diminishing whimper. This, thought Gordo, was the perfect time to assert himself. As she approached him, he hit her across the back and ran straight back to the Bray, knowing that she was afraid of the outdoors and wouldn’t have the courage to follow him.
He reached the platform and turned to watch Honey B screaming at him helplessly from the end of the chute.
Is it any less indecent for Willy B to cause daily disruptions to the harmony of the group simply because they are born out of blind rage and not malice? I make no claims as to the relative moral status of these two varieties of jerkishness. Nor, again, do I intend to cast all males as irredeemably jerkish. But in my experience, they do seem on average to contain each type of jerkishness in greater proportion than their female counterparts.
And as to whether these same tendencies prevail in my own species, I claim ignorance.
Come on Down!
Animal exploitation begins with greed… They want to make money and they’ll make money at the expense of any kind of animal, be it a puppy or an elephant. It’s disgusting. ” – Bob Barker
Like a lot of Americans, I have spent some time curled up in a blanket, eating noodle soup, drinking 7-Up, eating saltine crackers, and watching Bob Barker on The Price Is Right when I was at home sick from school. Even though he always ended the show with his famous closing of “Get your pets spayed and neutered,” like clockwork, it wasn’t until I became older I found out how much of an animal lover he was, which in turn made me appreciate him even more.
As some of you know, he was very supportive of the plight of chimpanzees in the Untied States used as biomedical subjects, entertainment, or in roadside zoos. By now, you may have read some of the other accredited sanctuaries who have posted about the passing of Bob Barker and the amazing support he has given them. We are no different. Through his DJ & T Foundation, he has supported Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest and our efforts, and we will always be grateful of him.
To honor what I personally think his vision was, here are some photos from today of the chimpanzees enjoying their day free from testing, abuse, and neglect.
Burrito at the start of our morning patrol/run
Jamie at the top of Young’s Hill walking amongst the trees
And Missy… Missy was really all over the place during the first morning patrol.
Trying to get a peep at the neighbors from a higher advantage point
Sprinting off to her next stop
Running down the log used to get to Jamie’s Tower to make it in time for breakfast
Rayne not letting a hole in a cup getting in her way of enjoying a Gatorade pool
And then there’s Gordo.
Handsome
Lovable
Uniq… Gordo… What are you doing?
Oh! Please don’t!
Okay! I get the hint! The photo session is over.
Joking aside, Gordo was just in a playful mood. In fact, he has been in a really good mood all day. Suspiciously in a really good mood. I’m starting to wonder what is up his sleeve for the rest of the day…
Whatever it is, it is his choice.
As Diana said in this 2017 post, “Choice. This, above all else, is what increases primate welfare the most. When you think about it, much of what we share on the blog are the choices that the chimpanzees are freely making on a daily basis.”
The freedom of choice is by far the greatest enrichment chimpanzees in captivity can experience.