Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Jody’s trip to the clinic

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Chimpanzees can be melodramatic at times. When they display, become frightened, or get into spats, the hoots and screams can be deafening. It happens often enough that you become inured to the minor day to day scuffles and other assorted histrionics (looking at you, Annie and Mave). But you can tell when things become serious. And we could tell that someone was really mad.

The conflict began as the staff were walking up the driveway to the front gate. One second it was serene and peaceful, the next it was an absolute cacophony of screams. After about 30 seconds only a single voice remained, and as we entered we could see Jody walking through the playroom screaming – in anger, it seemed, but I would imagine also in shock and in pain. A closer look revealed a laceration across her right foot and a toe pointed in a decidedly wrong direction.

Chimps heal quickly and uneventfully from injuries that would leave me in the hospital. Serious lacerations often zip up within days without sutures and chimps may even take it upon themselves to straighten out a dislocated digit before anyone else can intervene. But injuries can also go undetected.

Thankfully, Jody is a cooperative patient. After isolating her in Front Room 1, we were able to use our new foot box along with portable x-ray equipment from Best Friends Mobile Veterinary Care (and a ton of grapes) to obtain awake x-rays. In doing so we discovered that, in addition to the dislocated third toe, she had a complete fracture of her fourth toe.

So along with pain medication and antibiotics, Jody was also booked for surgery. Dr. Erin and Dr. Erika treated Jody’s injuries this morning and conducted a full physical examination along with vaccinations. Jody was quickly moved back to recovery and before long was sitting up and even enjoying some snacks.

Dr. Erika and Dr. Erin prepare to intubate as Diana cleans Jody’s injury

Examination of our closed circuit camera footage helped us understand how the injury occurred, but as is often the case, did not help explain why. The chimps are scattered throughout the playroom, many still in their nests from the night before. Foxie, standing in the loft, begins softly vocalizing and working up to a display. As her pant-hoots reach their crescendo, she charges across the bridge and attacks Burrito, who appears to be minding his own business on the opposite catwalk. Everyone leaps to their feet and begins to run and scream. Jody heads toward the conflict but tries to stay on the periphery. Soon, however, she is pulled across the bridge, her foot in Jamie’s mouth.

We’ve been primed in many ways to think of chimpanzee aggression in strategic terms – the epic struggles for dominance as beta males overthrow their aging leader or the clashes between communities as they vie for scarce resources. But aggression in captive chimpanzees will often leave you scratching your head as to its purpose. Why are Foxie and Burrito unscathed and seemingly still on good terms, while poor Jody bore the brunt of the violence? We can’t help but invent explanations for behavior – we’re wired to think that way. But so often we’re wrong. And the theories we develop can color our perceptions of future events in misleading ways. For example, if we didn’t have the closed circuit camera footage, I would have put money on Burrito playing some role in instigating that fight. Turns out the guy is just misunderstood.

Sometimes when we talk to colleagues at other sanctuaries, they will say things like “Oh, you have a biter in that group.” And sadly, we do. Many of them. Maybe all of them. In twelve years with the Cle Elum Seven, we’ve seen no consistent aggressors, no consistent victims, and no one that hasn’t had an ear, finger, or toe bitten during their time here – with the exception of Annie, suspiciously…

I wish we had a soap opera script explanation for these events, or that we could blame it on the weather or the moon, but if I’m being honest, they just happen sometimes. I’m just glad chimpanzees are tough.

So for the next few days Jody will rest up, take her medications, and eat lots of good food, and before long she will be back with her family. Jamie will probably welcome Jody’s return and tenderly groom the foot that she nearly chomped off. Nearby, Foxie and Burrito will play a quiet game of tickle as they sit in front of the sunny window where Foxie launched her attack. And life will go on for the Cle Elum Seven.

Jody recovering from her procedure this afternoon

Taking temperatures

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In recent weeks, we’ve implemented a number of precautionary measures to prevent the chimpanzees from being exposed to the coronavirus. At the same time, we’re ramping up routine health monitoring to aid in early detection should a chimpanzee become ill. Thanks to years of positive reinforcement training, body temperatures can be collected quickly and easily at mealtimes. Chimps, like humans, exhibit individual variation in baseline temperatures and temperature readings vary depending on how they are obtained (no-contact, oral, rectal, armpit, etc.). But by collecting temperatures routinely and consistently we can notice trends that could indicate infection before other clinical symptoms appear.

Mave, Honey B, and Willy B, our newest residents, learned quickly and are also enjoying this daily routine!

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.