Negra is a no-nonsense, dessert comes first kind of chimpanzee. Dinner is usually served in the order of fruits/veggies first, but Negra has no patience for this standard operating procedure. She impatiently waits through the whole meal, often collecting a pile of produce along the way. When we FINALLY get around to night bags, she impatiently rips into the bag and settles down for her favorite evening ritual, the slow tedious consumption of her night bag. The rest of dinner can wait.
Sanctuary
Happy Birthday, Tammi!
Kelsy Compton sponsored a day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees and her mom, Tammi Finnick!: “Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you enjoy your special day. Love you!”
Thank you so much, Kelsy, for including the chimpanzees in your celebration of your mom on her birthday!
Happy Birthday, Tammi! All of us here hope you have a beautiful day!
Sweet Jody:
Jody and Foxie:
International Primate Day 2020!
Today is International Primate Day! The day was created in 2005 as a way to educate and raise awareness about various issues primates all around the world face, both in the wild and in captivity. As you know, all of our residents have come from the biomedical industry. Seven have called Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest home for 12 years now, while three have called it home for a year. Though we as staff consider ourselves very fortunate and lucky to be able to try to provide the best possible life for these 10 remarkable individuals, there are more who are in need of a new home.
Currently, there are chimpanzees at the Wildlife Waystation in Southern California who are awaiting new homes. For years, staff and volunteers there have provided care for all the animals who called Wildlife Waystation home. Unfortunately, the decision was made to close their doors last year. This left hundreds of animals in need of a new home. The only residents who remain are their chimpanzee residents. If you have been following our blog and/or the news, then you know we are one of the sanctuaries trying to expand in order to provide homes for some of these individuals as soon as possible.
You can read more about how you can help maintain those chimpanzees’ current care until they find new homes at The Chimpanzees in Need webpage.
You can also support us as we expand to bring some of these chimpanzees home to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. We are currently preparing for our first ever online gala! Due to the current pandemic, the decision was made to hold Hoot! online this year. Be sure to visit the Hoot! 2020 site to browse some of the amazing things that will be up to bid on September 12th with more to come!
Now for the happenings of today (and yesterday)!
If you watched the video, then you know there was a lot of playing going on between Mave, Honey B, and Willy B! There were scarce moments where we couldn’t hear laughter coming from that side of the building.
Yesterday, we gave them a food puzzle that seems to becoming one of their new favorites: Firehose Cubes! We put small things into the cube for them to fish out. Some things have food in them, some don’t. One item that did have nuts in them were fanny packs. Honey B was very delicate with hers and would carefully unzip the pouches to retrieve the food inside. Willy B, on the other hand, used his canines to rip it open. We could only guess what Honey B was thinking as she watched this all unfold to one of her fanny packs.
The Seven received a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill.
Beautiful Jody was seen all over the place, picking up as many orange slices and apple slices as she could.
She had to take a break and eat some of her haul, as Jamie casually ate as she went.
Missy’s first place to forage for food was in Negra’s Cabin.
Negra was actually on a platform a little bit away.
Burrito had both hands and mouthful as he grabbed whatever was in sight.
Later in the afternoon, we decided to treat everybody with a round of paper braids!
Jody enjoying hers.
Annie seemingly inhaled hers!
Note: As I was taking these photos of everybody enjoying their paper braids, I felt this presence. Like the feeling a shark circling it’s prey. With one loud stomp of the foot, my eyes shifted a little to the right. There was a flash of fur and paper braids through a child’s slide in the Greenhouse.
The presence was getting nearer and nearer. I could almost hear the theme song to Jaws being played but in a rendition of raspberries/Bronx cheers.
Who could it be!?
Burrito!!!
He was very enthused to play, but also very occupied with his paper braids. Not knowing what he wanted to do, he decided to play toe tickle. This version was with him on his back while poking his toes through the mesh. This allowed him to play and eat his paper braids.
We also gave Willy B, Honey B, and Mave paper braids.
Honey B decided to help Mave by picking up the seeds she missed as she tore into the braids.
At lunch, Foxie decided to enjoy her beets, bell peppers and (Orange) Blossom dolls inside, while the others ate outside.
We all hope you had an amazing day and have a great evening!
Enrichment comes in many forms
As you may be aware, Willy B and Honey B both love watching videos and checking out their photos on our phones. They also quite enjoy watching movies, more so than any of the other chimpanzees. Though we don’t play movies all the time, they are one more form of enrichment we offer the chimpanzees that they can choose to engage with or not. With Willy B and Honey B, as soon as the TV gets wheeled in they both get really excited! They seem to enjoy nature documentaries in particular, and will both sit in front of the TV, RIVETED, especially Willy B. (Honey is a busy woman and perhaps cannot contain her zooms quite as long as he does 🙂 ).
But we recently discovered the ultimate movie in Willy B’s opinion. He cannot get enough of it! I walked in Phase 1 after the chimps had lunch yesterday to find Willy sprawled out on the bench, glued to the TV, just like any of us might do on our couch. And his favorite movie??
Ice Age!
We have no idea what it is about this movie, but he LOVES it. It took me ages to get it set up and he somehow patiently waited for what must have felt like an eternity, never once losing interest. Some time later, one of us accidentally tripped the cord walking past and unplugged it and Willy B blew raspberries to let us know. Then one of us accidentally walked in front of the TV and Honey B waved her arms, seemingly suggesting, “Get out of the way!”
Willy B!!
But also just like most of us, I eventually caught him napping in front of the TV:
In other news, we caught Jamie and Foxie in a good ol’ game of head-butting (??). They were laughing so hard and then, these faces!!
And we recently had a kind supporter bring the gift of fresh mangoes for the chimpanzees! Annie is allergic to mangoes, so we cannot give them to the seven, but what a wonderful surprise for the three! Just to be on the safe side and prevent anything making it’s way to Annie, we don’t buy mangoes so we hadn’t yet offered them to Mave, Willy B and Honey B and we weren’t sure how they’d respond (they can be known to be a little particular with their food choices). Well, they knew exactly what they were and were so excited! Here’s Honey B enjoying hers at dinner tonight. And let me say, it’s incredible to watch them eat these! Literally, within seconds it’s completely gone and they spit out the pit that ends up looking like a Pringles potato chip. Honey B might suggest we all go try that.
Hype for HOOT!
It would be an understatement to say that 2020 has been a rollercoaster of a year. At times, it’s felt more like a haunted house full of people who have all taken hallucinogenics (or something that is equally chaotic, confusing, and concerning).
Still, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate and we have much to be hopeful for. The chimps’ lives have been largely unaffected by the public health crisis and we’re working hard to keep it that way. Despite the economic uncertainty and logistical hurdles, we’ve managed to keep the residents happy and healthy, sustainably expand our staff, make upgrades to our existing property and facilities, and begin constructing new areas that will hopefully provide a home for more rescued chimpanzees.
All of this progress would be impossible without the financial support that comes from generous supporters, and we’re getting ready to host our biggest fundraising event of the year: HOOT 2020!
Unlike previous years, this edition of HOOT! will be a virtual celebration so that you can all participate from the comfort of your home (or office… we won’t tell anyone if you choose to spend your work day bidding on items). Of course, we’d love to be hosting you all in Seattle for a big ole’ shindig, but the “virtualness” of this year’s party has some benefits of its own. As always, there are some amazing items and experiences up for auction (bidding starts September 2nd!) and the itinerary also includes a happy hour and a pant-hoot contest.
The preparations have been underway for quite some time, but some aspects of the event are still developing. Burrito witnessed something that excited him today, but you’ll have to tune into the event to see what it was…
To get started, you can go to the HOOT! 2020 website hosted by Auction Frogs. Seriously, go to the website! I’m not going to post too many spoilers here, but we have a lot planned for this big event!!!
P.S. Here’s a little spoiler. Saxophone by Tobi Stone.
Bronx Cheers
I remember when I first learned that adult house cats “meow” almost exclusively to humans and not to other cats. It’s still fascinating to me that in the course of domestication, not only have we selected for certain vocal tendencies in cats but they have also exploited some natural human perceptual tendencies to be able to express what they want – for example, food, affection, or help when they are in trouble. It’s a language, if you will, that exists only between our two species.
Chimpanzees are obviously not domesticated but they certainly are smart, and they have also found unique ways to communicate with humans. The Bronx cheer, or raspberry, is part of the vocal repertoire of many free-living chimpanzees but it is typically used when grooming. Captive chimpanzees, however, have discovered that at full volume it’s a great way to get the attention of humans. And if you do it over and over again, louder and louder each time, the humans will eventually give in. Or go crazy. Either way, it’s enriching for them.
Mmmm larvae
Most of us have probably seen the many photos of chimpanzees in the wild using tools to fish for termites. As a general rule, chimpanzees that have grown up in captivity don’t have the same taste for insects that you see in wild chimpanzees. I would bet lots of money if you tried to serve Honey B a termite she would be totally disgusted with you. The chimps seem to find fishing for peanut butter to be a more ideal situation.
Here’s Jamie fishing for peanut butter in a PVC tube attached to the outside the caging:
I think we all have a tendency to forget that some of the chimps at the sanctuary actually do occasionally eat insects (but only wasp larvae, so far as we’ve seen). The wasps are most prevalent this time of year and we try to remove any nests we find near the chimp enclosures to prevent both humans and chimps from the almost inevitable summer stings. Since the outdoor space is so large, we sometimes miss the ones being built on Young’s Hill. If you watch the above video you will get up close and personal with Jamie as she dissects a wasp nest she found on the hill.
Watching Jamie reminded me of a blog Diana wrote 5 years ago on the topic. In the blog she wrote: “Watching her, it wasn’t entirely clear to me how much of the larvae she was eating, because she seemed to be selectively eating some parts and not others, but she was clearly enjoying the experience.” After seeing Jamie’s careful deconstruction of the nest from a much closer vantage point (through a window), I’ve deduced that she seems to eat only the squishy larva stage of the wasp and not the older, more developed pupa stage. Don’t worry though, Missy was right behind her to finish off the rest of it.
