Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today’s enrichment theme was “tea party” so we took that literally and made two types of tea for the chimps to enjoy after we had finished cleaning their castle.
Post-tea time was spent on important things like diving into the nesting position, staring at a troll doll, and some lazy play with friends. Watch the video with sound.
Who can resist being thoroughly charmed by these chimpanzees?
Chimpanzees have rich imaginary lives. Chimps who use American Sign Language have been observed signing to inanimate objects and engaging them as if they were live social partners. For example, a chimpanzee named Dar was once seen signing “tickle” to a stuffed bear that he was playing with. I personally recall (and will never, ever forget) watching a chimpanzee named Moja don a curly blonde wig and look at herself in the mirror while signing “pretty” to her reflection.
Foxie was never taught sign language, but language isn’t a requirement for imaginary play.
Nor is imaginary play limited to chimpanzees raised in human environments. In the wild, young chimpanzees have been seen carrying sticks as rudimentary dolls and caring for them as if they were their own offspring. Are they simply expressing a desire to be more grown up? Could it be an instinctual form of practice to prepare them for motherhood? Whatever the motivation, it is probably not much different than our own.
What’s so interesting about Foxie is that the objects of her imaginary play are often not chimpanzee-like at all. Foxie is occasionally given chimpanzee dolls but she rejects them in favor of Troll dolls or Dora the Explorer dolls. And when she plays with Dora, she treats her more as a human than as a chimp. Note how she stands Dora bipedally (on two legs) instead of quadrupedally like a chimpanzee, even though Dora would stand upright just as well on all fours.
We can never truly know what a chimpanzee is thinking, but we certainly know that they are thinking. And imaginary play gives us a tantalizing peek into what those thoughts might be.
Today was a great day!
Way back in the spring, Charlie Nickerson of Troop 80 in Seattle contacted J.B. about doing his eagle scout project to help the sanctuary. We’re not able to say yes to all requests we get from people interested in doing volunteer projects like this, but we had just had a bunch of fire hose donated, so J.B. got Charlie started on the idea of making some fire hose hammocks to add to the interest of Young’s Hill.
A whole group of people joined in the hanging of the two awesome new hammocks, including other members of Troop 80, Shawn (J.B.’s new right-hand maintenance volunteer), John, and two CWU students – Ruth and Kyle.
It was pouring when they arrived this morning, so the chimps didn’t mind not having access to their outdoor habitat. The team worked outside in the wet weather with J.B. while volunteer Rachel and I cleaned up the chimp house.
In addition to the two new hammocks, the group also hung fire hose in various areas on the hill, connecting structures to each other.
Luckily, by the time they were finished with all of this manual labor, the weather had cleared up. So, the hardworking team spread a forage on the hill for the chimps and watched all seven chimpanzees forage for their lunch and explore the new features of their habitat.
I took what seemed like hundreds of photos of the chimps enjoying these new features and foraging, and I’ve narrowed down a couple of series to share in this blog post.
You probably know that we celebrate Jamie’s birthday on Halloween, which is just a few days away, but Missy might have thought all the new fire hose was a present just for her.
I am calling the below series of photos: “A Missy in Motion Tends to be the Best Thing Ever.”
Here is Missy standing next to Annie. Take a moment to admire Missy’s thigh muscles:
In her element, Missy tightrope walking and otherwise using existing and newly hung fire hose to traverse all over the hill:
Later in the day, Missy discovered some food cleverly hidden in new fire hose wrapped around a log post:
Every once in a while, she would stop to rest:
But not for long! Here she is climbing into one of the new hammocks:
I’d say it’s a hit:
This next series of Jamie I am calling, “Perfect Dismount”
A very cleverly hung piece of hose that Jamie couldn’t resist trying out:
Annie may have found her new favorite hangout:
Burrito explored a new hammock by himself later in the day:
And then he peeked at us from the lookout:
Thanks to everyone who helped make the day a great one, including all of you reading and sharing this – your support makes every day great!
Despite Burrito’s best efforts, the girls still don’t treat him as the alpha of the group. I wonder why…
The chimps love these cool fall mornings. As soon as we’re done serving breakfast in the greenhouse, they pack up whatever they have left – in this case chow bags and pomegranate rinds – and head out to the hill take in the view.
The Tortoise and the Hare is a helpful allegory, but who wins in real life? The tortoise (Jamie) or the hare (Missy)?
Last month I wrote about “missing chimpanzee” Foxie, who has been doing a lot of solo exploring on the hill this summer. In May, Anna shared that Negra had been venturing out further on Young’s Hill than she had ever been before.
Well, we can add Burrito to this growing list of chimpanzees who have suddenly become more confident in the outdoor habitat.
As I was finishing up a walk with Jamie this afternoon, I came around to the front of the building and noticed the figure of a chimpanzee way up on the towers at the top of the hill. To my surprise, it was Burrito who was up there, walking across the shaky bridge, all by himself. I should mention that there was no food forage involved, so his motivation wasn’t tied to finding a snack.
I rushed up to the observation deck and got a few photos as he climbed down from the lookout and slowly walked back toward the greenhouse:
As I took these photos, I was grinning like a fool, and I called down to Burrito to tell him how great I think he is.
Like humans, chimpanzees experience varying degrees of anxiety and fear. In some ways, Burrito shows more anxiety than some of the other chimpanzees. It took him a long time to get comfortable in the greenhouse when it was first completed in 2010, even when the ladies were spending the majority of their time out there (read this blog post from Elizabeth from March 2010 and watch the video of Burrito finally making a breakthrough and spending some time in the greenhouse).
And now, this summer, five years after the chimpanzees were given the 2-acre outdoor habitat that we call Young’s Hill, they are still continuing to gradually embrace and explore their autonomy.
I wonder what they will be doing five years from now.
