Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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taking care of each other

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Today Annie and Missy spent a good part of the hot afternoon grooming each other in the greenhouse.

Notice in the photo below that Missy is grooming her own arm with a twig while Annie grooms her head. Classic Missy.

Annie grooming Missy's head

 

Missy had a bit of an injury to her left eye (nothing serious), so Annie was very interested in that, but she took her time working her way around to grooming that spot:

Missy and Annie grooming close-up

 

Once she got there, she didn’t hold back:

Annie grooming Missy's eye

 

Annie grooming Missy's eye close-up

 

It turns out that Annie had a bit of an injury on the back of her left year, which I noticed because Missy noticed it. In this photo and in the one above when Annie starts grooming Missy’s eye, both chimpanzees have a relaxed face with slightly parted lips – a sign of concentration.

Missy grooming Annie's ear

 

Though injuries and even old scabs are really interesting, there’s always different areas to check out – here’s Annie removing something that was stuck to the hair on Missy’s arm:

Annie grooming Missy's arm

 

Who needs a spa when you have such fastidious friends?

Annie grooming Missy's head close-up

 

Negra building trust and HOOT! tonight

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Today is a big day for me—it is my last day as a staff caregiver at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. I am excited to say that I will be beginning a new position with an animal advocacy group where I can utilize all my skills I’ve learned while developing and working on the Eyes on Apes program and fighting for chimpanzees everywhere. It is not a goodbye for me, though—I will be working from home, which means I will remain very much apart of the lives of the Cle Elum Seven and their human friends, too! Sorry guys, you can’t get rid of me just yet 😉

Though I am not saying goodbye, I have been reflecting a lot lately on my time here at CSNW and the relationships I’ve built with the chimpanzees over the last seven years! I started as a volunteer just a couple months after the chimpanzees arrived and they stole my heart. At the time, I was a graduate student working with signing chimpanzees in Ellensburg (a similar background to many of the CSNW staff) but I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. Since chimpanzee caregiving jobs are few and far between, odds were that I would end up doing something completely unrelated. But as I spent more time at CSNW, seeing the chimpanzees change and grow in sanctuary, my career path became solidified. Words can truly never express how amazing it is to witness the incredible transformation and second chance that sanctuary can provide for chimpanzees.

Negra is a perfect example. She was stolen from her mother and captured from Africa as an infant, and then forced into research to be used in invasive vaccination testing for human diseases. She was also used a breeder, and had her three babies taken from her within days of birth. As if that wasn’t already bad enough, Negra was kept in complete isolation for nearly two years.

Negra has no grounds to trust humans. How could she? After everything that they had done to her—no one is surprised that she isn’t quick to trust someone. Negra’s changes in sanctuary have been very gradual, but we have seen a lot of growth. Negra from day one was (understandably) untrusting and preferred solitude. It became clear after a little while that Negra exhibited symptoms of someone with PTSD and depression. But as the years went by, we saw Negra playing—first with her chimpanzee friends, and then with humans! And she slowly became more trusting as well.

I learned very early on that Negra does not like to be touched. It is likely that she had several negative experiences in the lab, literally being poked and prodded, and so even a gentle knuckle rub would make her scream and run away. After some time, though, she would occasionally ask for a knuckle rub by offering her back to her caregivers. I remember the first time I gave Negra a knuckle rub I was almost in tears, just thinking about how long it took her to realize that she was safe here—and I would not hurt her.

Honestly, I’m not sure that she’s completely convinced of that fact. Just due to the sheer horror of her past, she has not fully moved on from those nightmares. Every once-in-a-while, something will startle Negra and the PTSD symptoms come through. As we started working on positive reinforcement training a little over a month ago, Negra was not thrilled with the sound of the clicker. Something about that sound associated with a bad memory for her, and she did not react very well at first. However, we were able to muffle the clicker sound by placing it in our pockets, and that seemed to work just fine. (And now she is fine without the muffle!) The next step was getting her comfortable with the target—the PVC tubes we use also were uncomfortable for her at first. After a few sessions though, she became more used to it, and realized that getting grapes and chow are totally worth touching that stupid stick. 😉

Ultimately, the positive reinforcement training is something that will be really incredible for Negra. We will be able to work up to a point where we can perform stress-free medical checks. And, if we ever needed to anesthetize her for any reason, we will be able to do so without any trauma, because she will have learned that presenting her shoulder for a poke results in a positive experience.

Since trust doesn’t come easy for her, and since she prefers routine over new things, I was worried that as her primary trainer, I would not be Negra’s biggest fan. However, I completely miscalculated how things would go. Instead of causing a strain on our relationship, training has made our friendship so much stronger. She has impressed me so much with her progress in our sessions, and I couldn’t be more proud of her. What I thought would take months, she has accomplished in just a few weeks. Negra not only confidently touches the target wherever I place it, but she also has started opening her mouth (a useful behavior for dental checks) and she is even presenting her shoulder.

Since this video was taken, she has become more reliable with the behaviors and is very comfortable with me touching her shoulder (even with a stick!)

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Now that I’ve exhausted everyone with such a wordy post, here are a bunch of some of my favorite photos of Negra:

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Negra look at pasture OA IMG_3782

web Negra funny lip close up outdoor area IMG_0112

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Tonight, we will be celebrating the last seven years of sanctuary at our annual HOOT! gala event in Seattle. We will be sharing stories of the gradual changes and new experiences that sanctuary has given Queen Negra and her chimpanzee family (or should I say the royal subjects under her reign?)

There really is no better send-off for me headed into my new adventure than joining everyone tonight in this celebration of sanctuary. I look forward to seeing you all there!

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Chimpanzee Problem Solving

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This is the story of Jody and the sheet. Jody was quite determined to untie this sheet from the fire hose and bring it in with her to make her evening nest.

It appeared to be an easy task at first – she quickly untied one end, but the second end proved more difficult because it was just a bit out of reach. She tried to climb the hose and untie the sheet at the same time, but, even with opposable toes, this did not work out.

She came up with a pretty brilliant solution.

Jody is not known for her athletic skills or her desire to solve puzzles, but when she wants something, she is one determined lady. It goes right along with our most recent e-news article about chimpanzee minds and bodies at work.

I think my favorite photo is #19. What’s yours?

All you can eat

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Chimpanzees seem to have a pretty good sense of time. Even if we haven’t started preparing dinner yet, the chimps at CSNW begin to gather near the window to the kitchen around 4 o’clock. They want to see what’s on the menu and remind us to hurry things along. But every once and a while, it remains ghostly quiet as dinner time nears – no one blowing raspberries at us, banging on the caging, clapping their hands, or stomping their feet. When this happens, it usually means one thing: They’ve started on dinner without us.

Chimps in captivity rely on humans for so much. Those who were wild caught, like Negra and Annie, were torn from their families, deprived of their native cultures, and forced into complete dependence on humans. And in some ways, they were the lucky ones, because those born into captivity never even got to experience a moment of independence in their lives. So when they learn to take back a tiny bit of autonomy, as they do when they choose when and what they’d like to eat, it is cause for celebration. And with two acres and a greenhouse full of bamboo and native plants, the chimps are able to make these choices every day.

Eating plants is good for their health, too. Chimps in the wild eat large quantities of rough fiber in the form of shoots, stems, and leaves. And while I don’t think we know yet exactly what role all of these foods play in their diet, we do know that this type if roughage allows captive chimps to snack all they want without putting them at risk for diet-related illnesses like heart disease and diabetes.

There are currently seven species of bamboo growing on Young’s Hill, and the chimps harvest from them year-round. Surprisingly, the bamboo on the hill seems to be prized most for its leaves, and the chimps tend to leave the fragile (but I would imagine tasty) shoots alone.

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A few other species of bamboo that are more sensitive to Cle Elum’s chilly winters do very well in the chimps’ greenhouse enclosure, and send up their tender shoots (Chusquea gigantea shoots seems to be a delicacy) as early as March.

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But in May, all of Young’s Hill becomes an all-you-can-eat salad bar. Even Negra will sit outside to snack on fresh dandelion greens.

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Missy, always on the move, takes hers to go.

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Spring grass is a favorite of nearly all the chimps. Annie collects only the best blades to bring back to the greenhouse.

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In mid-summer, some larger plants begin to grow. Most people would consider them weeds, but the chimps think otherwise. Jody likes mullein, which I imagine to be the equivalent of eating bitter craft felt, but Jody must have a more refined palette.

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Missy and a few others like prickly lettuce, which we mistook for dandelions for a while until we picked up some of their leftovers – they are just as prickly as the name suggests. Just like in the wild, captive chimpanzees will sometimes eat foods that are physically difficult to ingest. While many of the plants consumed by wild chimps have been shown to have medicinal value, such as the anti-parasitical Aspilia leaves, we don’t know if captive chimps are attempting to self medicate or are just eating adventurously.

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The bane of my existence is this wild mustard. It grows so big and tough that it will break your weed eater. But when it grows inside the chimps’ enclosure, it gets taken care of by nature’s weed eater, otherwise known as Jody.

Jody carry weed on head

 

The chimps could never live on these plants alone, even if they do supplement with the occasional live frog like Negra does. But they are important in other ways. Like tonight, when the chimps all disappeared onto the hill just before dinner, you could almost hear them saying:

To heck with the humans, let’s eat!

Who’s There?

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We had a group of students visit today from The Northwest School, and the chimpanzees were very curious about them.

It was our first group visit at the observation area this year, and the weather was beautiful! Just like our summer visits, a staff member (J.B. today) gave a presentation first in the barn, providing information about the history of the sanctuary and chimpanzees in general, including the use of chimpanzees in the pet, entertainment, and biomedical industries.

Once the group came to the observation area, Jamie, being Jamie, was outside in a flash and spent some time checking out everyone’s footwear.

Negra, on the other hand, held back for a bit. Sometimes it seems that Negra avoids visitors, but today she went out on the hill, ignoring the forage at first, and just calmly checked out the visitors from a distance.

Negra looking at visitors

 

Negra looking at visitors 2

 

Negra sitting arms crossed

 

Satisfied, she then went about her business looking for lunch forage scraps

Negra walking

 

Negra climbing over log

In addition to providing an educational opportunity for supporters of the sanctuary, it’s our goal for our limited visitor program to add something new and interesting for the chimpanzees in a way that they do not feel at all threatened, so it was great to see Negra react with such calm curiosity today.

 

Burrito was curious when the group was loading back on the bus, after he had his fill of the forage. He chose to watch their departure from the greenhouse, where he could see them but they couldn’t see him:

Burrito looking at visitors leaving

Positive Reinforcement Training

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We’re really excited to be embarking on a new program here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Thanks to a generous grant from the National Anti-Vivisection Society Sanctuary Fund, we recently began a Positive Reinforcement Training (PRT) program with the goal of teaching the chimps to participate in cooperative health monitoring.

Many of you reading this are probably familiar with PRT – it’s the “clicker training” that you see used everywhere from teaching dolphins to do flips to teaching your own dog to come when called. It uses positive rewards (usually food) and a “bridge” (a clicker, whistle, or even the word “good”) to reinforce particular behaviors. PRT is a tool, and like most tools, it can be used for good and for bad. So while it may unfortunately be used to teach animals to perform tricks for people’s amusement, it can also have a positive effect on the welfare of chimpanzees in captivity.

In their many decades in different laboratories across the country, the Cle Elum Seven chimps were darted with chemical anesthetics so that the labs could carry out experiments, treat wounds and illnesses, and perform routine physical exams. In some cases, the chimps were forced into small cages and surrounded by technicians with syringes, each one waiting until the chimp moved close enough to the caging to jab them. It’s hard to imagine how terrifying that must have been. And it happened over and over again – for some, well over a hundred times.

Thankfully, life in the laboratory is behind them now, but sanctuaries also have to collect information on the chimpanzees’ health if we want to provide the best care possible. What if there was a way to gain the same information without anesthetizing them at all? And if they did require anesthetization, what if they could learn to willingly participate in the procedure and avoid the pain and trauma of being darted? That’s where PRT comes in.

PRT has been used successfully in zoos, labs, and sanctuaries to teach chimps to cooperate with a host of health monitoring procedures: presenting different body parts for examination, sitting on a scale to be weighed, urinating into a cup, allowing their temperature to be taken, presenting an arm or leg for injection, and even allowing their blood to be drawn.

For us, the real prize is to get a look at Burrito’s heart function using an ultrasound machine. A few years ago, Burrito started showing symptoms of congestive heart failure, and since then we have successfully treated his symptoms with medication. But we’d like to get an echocardiogram to confirm the diagnosis and monitor the disease’s progression, and we’d like it even more if we could avoid anesthetizing him for it.

The grant from NAVS allowed us to bring in Gail Laule from Active Environments for the first of many visits to help create our PRT program and train our staff. Our work with the chimps began last Tuesday, and it’s amazing how much progress the chimps have made in just a little over a week. We began with simple things, like touching a target (just a pvc tube with some tape on the end), and quickly moved on from there.

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There are some challenges, of course. Jamie likes to be in control, and this new program has got her quite confused about who exactly is in charge here. So for now, the bulk of Jamie’s training consists of teaching her to allow us to work with the other chimps without interference. Negra, who suffered so much in her 35 years in the lab, was scared of the sound of the clicker, so she needed to be eased into training with more sensitivity. But while that first day was a bit of a challenge for Negra and her caregivers, imagine how she would feel if we had to dart her someday when she became ill. The beauty of PRT is that you can slowly and safely desensitize the chimps to frightening interventions so that when they are really needed, they can be performed with less stress and trauma.

But there is one chimp in particular that seems to enjoy training even more than the others, and who seems to have a particular aptitude for it. Any guesses?

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That’s right, Burrito has finally found something that combines his two greatest passions: eating and playing with his caregivers. He is going to ace this program.

All of the chimps are learning to touch a target and to present different body parts for inspection – this is how we might examine and treat wounds, for example, and it also creates the foundation for more complex behaviors. To perform his ultrasound, Burrito will have to hold his chest to the caging for an extended period of time, so our training with him is also focusing heavily on that. Here’s a quick clip to show you how well our star student is doing:

We are so grateful to NAVS for providing the funding for this training, to Gail for getting us off on the right foot, and to all of our supporters who make each day in sanctuary possible for these seven chimps. We are looking forward to sharing our progress with you!