The blanket ghost, mystery chimp, or the blanket bandit strikes again today! Missy, who we staff and volunteers thought for a slight moment was Negra, was caught playing an intense game of under the blanket wrestling, biting, and canoodling. What I cannot get over is the moment at the end of the video. Annie’s head in Missy’s lap. Little Miss was looking out the window while her best friend Annie rested her head. I mean my heart hurts just writing it! Let’s just say there were a lot of happy chimps today!
Sanctuary
Connections: Honoring James Douglas
The truth about running a nonprofit animal sanctuary is that most of your time is spent interacting with humans.
I get that this might not sound all that appealing to everyone who is interested in embarking on a career in the sanctuary or animal protection field. Let’s face it, a lot of “animal people” feel strong connections to non-human animals, while feeling some disdain, awkwardness, or unease around their own human species.
Something I learned early on that seems to get reinforced more strongly each day, however, is that people who are drawn to help sanctuaries are some of the very best examples of the human species.
In eleven years, you can imagine that we’ve met a whole lot of (human) people in the form of volunteers, donors, staff members, students, and other supporters. We get to know people and we become aware of both the joys and the hardships that people face in their lives. I often find myself thinking and worrying about humans that are connected to the sanctuary far more than the chimpanzees.
Through our Sponsor-a-Day and Personalized Stones donation programs, we’ve also been introduced to the important human and non-human people in the lives of supporters, often after these influential people have already passed away.
It’s an incredible honor to be able to honor people.
When someone very close to the sanctuary passes away, though, I feel at a loss as to how to appropriately honor them.
Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, and the world, recently lost an incredible man. Introduced to the sanctuary by his wife and CSNW volunteer, Jen, James Douglas was a long-serving board member who led CSNW through many transitions. He was full of optimism and positivity, even when faced with difficult situations. He was kind and generous. He was a natural leader. He was a friend and a mentor.
Although the sanctuary was a small part of his life, and he leaves behind many, many people who were changed by his life and affected by his loss, he played an outsized role in the relatively short life of the sanctuary. He meant a lot to us personally as well as to the development of the organization.
I plan to honor the legacy that he left behind at CSNW by working even harder to carry out the plans for the future that James helped to craft and to attempt to approach life and work with even just a small amount of the curiosity, joyfulness, and hope that he exemplified. The same qualities that I see in the chimpanzees.
Cheers to you, James.
A Show of Hands
I saw this illustration of primate hands shared on social media recently and thought it was a great example of how diverse the primate order is.
The most unusual hand belongs to the aye-aye (Daubetonia). It taps its long, slender fingers on trees in search of food. After opening up a hollow with its rodent-like incisors, it uses its specialized middle digit to extract grubs. Think of them as the primate version of a woodpecker.
Some primates, like the slow loris (Nycticebus) and potto (Perodicticus), have evolved hands that allow for better arboreal grasping. Notice how the index fingers have become mostly vestigial and the thumb has rotated away from the other digits. This is part of a suite of adaptations that allow them to maintain a strong grip for long periods of time. It’s probably not a coincidence that they look more like birds’ feet.
In another example of form following function, the long digits of tarsiers (Tarsius) have rounded, frog-like pads, allowing them to cling and leap like…yes, frogs!
Many arboreal species, like orangutans (Pongo), have evolved small thumbs while others, like the spider monkey (Ateles), lack an external thumb entirely to aid in climbing. While it’s tempting to think of opposable thumbs as somehow better or more advanced (even the spider monkey’s genus name sounds judgmental – Ateles, meaning incomplete or imperfect, is a reference to their missing thumbs), this is simply not true. The ancestor to the spider monkey had opposable thumbs but in the course of adapting to their environment, spider monkeys got those lousy things out of the way so that they could grip and swing better. They are perfectly complete for the niche they inhabit.
Looking at a chimpanzee’s hand, you can see that they are far less specialized than those of many other primates, making them generally well-suited to both climbing and walking. While chimpanzees walk on the soles of their feet, they flex their hands and bear weight on the outside of the intermediate phalanges (the part of the finger between the second and third knuckle).
Thick pads develop on this part of the hand for protection.
Long palms and fingers and short thumbs aid in gripping large trunks and branches.
The trade-off, when compared to human hands, is less power and control in the precision grip.
The length of a chimpanzee’s hand and more limited rotation and flexion of the thumb prevent pad-to-pad gripping or pinching, but they are still able to grasp and manipulate objects between the thumb and fingers, allowing for the use of tools.
Table Manners
There is something very satisfying about seeing chimpanzees’ total abandon when they eat. They smack their lips and chew with their mouths open, and feel no shame about it.
Today is for Lisa and Linda
We began today with a double Sponsor-a-Day of sanctuary which turned into a triple Sponsor-a-Day! How amazing that these seven chimpanzees are held in the hearts of so many humans as they celebrate and honor the special times and loved ones in their lives.
Rich and Lisa Stuverud are long-time friends and supporters of the chimps and Rich sponsored today for Lisa in celebration of her birthday! He shared this touching message about his gift:
“Please accept this in honor of my beautiful wife Lisa on her birthday. She has overcome some severe medical situations this past year and has been inspired in no small way by the incredible personal saga of the furry little group on the hill. She could often be found watching CSNW videos on the YouTube channel during her recovery.”
And then without knowing about her gift to come, Lisa sponsored today in memory of her beloved sister-in-law, Linda Vizzare, in celebration of their shared birthday today. Lisa’s lovely message:
“Well, another year gone by missing my birthday buddy, Linda Vizzare…we shared this day for 36 years until her passing 4 years ago. We also shared the love and admiration for the Cle Elum Seven and all the things the sanctuary provides for them. To see Burrito do his happy dance was her favorite. Their joy with everything sanctuary provides for them continues to inspire…I only wish there was a way for her to see Jamie race the Gator down the backstretch with her joyous clap, stomp and hop take off…she would be so thrilled ! This is the best way to celebrate!”
Rich and Lisa, thank you so much for sharing this special day with the chimpanzees, for always holding them in your hearts, and for all you bring to their lives. Lisa, we hope you have a beautiful day filled with love, joy and the comfort of memories held dear. Happy Birthday, to you and Linda!
And as you said, what better way to celebrate than a replay of Jamie racing the Gator (which she did again this morning!):
Happy Birthday, Joanna!
We are so fortunate to have two sponsorships for a double day of sanctuary! Our first comes from Kathleen Kemper who sponsored today for Joanna Gabriel and shared this lovely message:
“April 4th is Joanna’s birthday. She has been in love with the Chimpanzees at the Northwest Sanctuary for several years, and is a devoted follower of the daily blogs. Joanna also contributes to the chimps’ enrichment whenever she can. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOANNA!”
Kathleen, thank you so much for celebrating Joanna by including the chimps in her day! We so appreciate you both!
Joanna, we hope you have the best birthday yet! Happiest of days from all of us here at CSNW! And how can you do anything but when looking at this guy:
Jody’s love of leisure
Beautiful Jody has been in the spotlight on the blog quite often lately. But what a treat, as we often don’t get to capture her closeup on camera. Jody is someone who has always taken her leisure and comfort very seriously since living in her sanctuary home. She loves nests heaping full of soft blankets, the warmest of spots to rest and enjoy her meals, and as much as she loves her family, she truly enjoys her alone time as well. One example of this is that she truly gives zero cares as to if we need to enter a certain area of the chimp house to clean if she happens to be enjoying that area. As she should, of course, but you have to smile at her complete commitment to do whatever she feels like doing. She’s an inspiration! I mean, what a wonderful thing seeing her, or any of the chimpanzees, making choices and claiming agency over their home and how their day runs.
If you’re newer to the blog you may not have had a chance to read one of our posts that give more detail to our cleaning routine (which we do daily), but whenever possible we like to try to clean the chimp house beginning with the greenhouse (since this is the area the chimps access Young’s Hill through and once they hunker down in there in warm weather it’s a feat to get them out for the rest of the day!). Of course this time of year that routine commonly switches to cleaning the playroom first because the chimps are indeed enjoying warmer sunlit mornings in the greenhouse and are understandably reluctant to leave so we often serve breakfast there before they head outside.
After we’ve cleaned the playroom, the trick with a toasty greenhouse is getting everyone to accept the invitation to come in for a forage snack so we can THEN hopefully close off said greenhouse for cleaning. Today I was relieved to see that everyone was pretty happy to come inside for a popular food puzzle of raisin boards (small pieces of wood with holes drilled in them that we put raisins inside). But as soon as I’d closed off the greenhouse Foxie sat by the door and continued to peer through the window and she and I looked at each other and I knew. “Foxie, Jody’s still in the greenhouse isn’t she?!” Well, even though I knew she was out there, despite multiple trips out to look for her and repeatedly calling her, I couldn’t find her! I even stood at the fence to Young’s Hill thinking maybe she’d gone on an adventure, calling, “JO! Jooooooo!!” Nothing. Finally, after scaling the ladder to see if she was at the very top of the greenhouse with one last, “Joooo??”, up went one tiny heel of her foot in the air. There she was alright, with zero cares about leaving her toasty nest. Classic Jody. So as I wrote this we were plotting and planning how to get in there to clean at the end of the day while the chimps had dinner inside. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Because truly, what a gift to be at their service, bend to their needs, go with their flow. What a gift to see their hearts happy.
