Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Sanctuary

Behind the Scenes

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Morning is the busiest time at the sanctuary. Here’s a photo tour of the first few hours of the day today.

Coming up the driveway to the sanctuary, you can see (L-R) the trailer that houses our mobile medical clinic (which will soon be replaced with a stationary medical clinic in the new expansion), the enrichment shed for storing extra toys and blankets for the chimps, the gate to the chimp house, and the barn, which is now used to store hay and straw for the cattle. Young’s Hill, the chimps’ two-acre outdoor habitat, is out of frame to the far left.

For the chimps’ safety and privacy, the sanctuary is not open to the public.

Today staff member Anna is Lead Caregiver.

The first order of the day is to greet the chimps and work through a brief morning checklist. (That’s Annie in the background.)

Meanwhile, volunteer Linda starts preparing breakfast.

This is usually how we find Negra first thing in the morning: huddled in a pile of blankets in her favorite spot on the playroom catwalk.

And this is usually how we find Burrito: working up into his morning display.

Anna checks the day’s enrichment for safety before it’s given to the chimps.

Anna and intern Rose check some doors and locks in preparation for entering the greenhouse for cleaning:

Linda, Rose, and intern Sofia start in the greenhouse…

…while Anna brings out a basket of clean enrichment and blankets.

These guys are the true MVPs of the sanctuary. They run every hour of the day.

When greenhouse cleaning is done, Anna gives the chimps access to the greenhouse, and Linda starts serving breakfast in the front rooms while Anna closes off the playroom for cleaning.

Burrito and Annie (if you look closely you can see a tiny Jody behind them in the greenhouse):

After some more door and lock checks, it’s time to clean the playroom.

Enrichment gets a thorough cleaning, too.

While Linda, Rose, and Sofia get started in there, Anna starts the trek up the hill for her Young’s Hill perimeter check…

…and back down the other side.

Once she determines that the hill is secure, she unlocks and opens the door.

Missy, Foxie, and Annie can’t wait to get out and explore a little.

Some chimps preferred to remain in the warm front rooms.

After playroom cleaning, Anna double-checks some locks…

…and then gives the chimps access to the playroom and closes off the front rooms for cleaning.

Jamie found a new book on predators that she was captivated by.

In the kitchen, the volunteers start preparing tonight’s evening enrichment (peanut butter pinecones) and lunch.

After some checks to make sure the front rooms are chimp-free, Anna unlocks them for the next round of cleaning…

Icy days, flying pigs and bonobos

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Yesterday we had freezing fog rolling through the sanctuary all day and overnight the sanctuary turned into an icy wonderland. With a wind chill of 20 degrees it’s remained enchanting, if not frigid, but that hasn’t stopped several of the chimpanzees from a quick run around Young’s Hill. But most of the chimps have been enjoying their day indoors, playing constant games of chase and making huge blanket nests.

And boss lady, Jamie, has no problem finding indoor activities to keep her busy in between her frosty runs. She began by taking an after breakfast nap complete with yawns and choosing to wear a hot pink sock with flying pigs in capes on it. Naturally.

We put out a forage of purple cabbage and dried oranges, but Jamie was most interested in what might have been hidden in her kitchenette. And we just love that giant caterpillar:

She later discovered a surprise pair of new boots:

And then she finally settled back into her nest for some reading about her cousins, the Bonobos. Jamie is utterly fascinated by the books she has been given about bonobos, even more so than her chimpanzee books. She spends ages looking at them over and over:

 

Ready to Go!

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Well these chimps were ready to go this morning! Jody and Foxie sprinted out the raceway onto Young’s Hill this morning. Annie sat and soaked in the crisp winter morning. Missy came rippin’ onto the Hill and had a quick morning hug with Annie and ripped right back inside! Burrito attempted to go out but quickly turned around to wait for everyone to come back inside. And when Jamie came out she was ready to conquer any quest!

Here is Foxie a little pilo out on the Hill:

After a brave attempt to hang with the girls, Burrito patiently waited for them to return to the Green House safely:

Burrito retreated back to the warm front rooms eventually:

Neggie with all her wisdom knew where she wanted to be (on the platform in Front Room 2 with a pile of blankets):

Jamie taking a quick yoga tree stand:

Later, after her Hill adventure she spent her leisurely morning wearing an ankle boot and another boot in her pelvic pocket all while laying on a barrel watching the volunteers clean the Playroom:

Two Small Words

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I’ve been writing these two small words over and over lately: Thank you.

Donors to the sanctuary made our year-end fundraising soar to new and unexpected heights, and we have been quite busy sending out thank you letters and donation receipts.

I love to write those words, and I love thinking about each person as they made their donation. Some donors I know very well, and I can picture them as I write. Others are new and mysterious, and I wonder how they came to know about the chimpanzee sanctuary in Cle Elum.

Sometimes (often) those two words don’t feel nearly big enough to contain all of the gratefulness that I’m feeling. I hope the actual depth of my appreciation is somehow transferred into the ink as I write.

It really is incredible that people support the sanctuary and take the time and effort to back up that support with often hard-earned money. Knowing that we have this shared concern and mission is powerful.

I feel lucky to have a job where I not only get to be around amazing and unique non-humans, but I also have the opportunity to see the generosity and hope that our own species is capable of demonstrating.

So, reflecting on all of this today, I started to think about how the chimpanzees show gratitude. Thankfulness is a pretty complicated emotion that is probably an amalgam of different feelings, and maybe something that carries a bit of cultural individuality.

We don’t claim to be able to be inside the heads of the chimpanzees, even those we know very well, so I can’t say for sure that they experience thankfulness like I do.

That’s the conundrum about perception, though – I only know what I experience. I can guess that other people/beings experience the same or similar feelings as I do based on imagining how I would feel in a given situation and observing their outward behaviors, but it’s really just a guess.

Given my limitations of knowing much of anything about what’s outside of myself, I do think that the chimpanzees show and maybe feel something akin to gratitude.

When we serve food, we bring it through the chimp area first, as illustrated in the popular “pasta cam” that J.B. created on Burrito’s birthday. The excitement that the chimpanzees exhibit and the satisfying groans they make when we provide them with food is, I think, at least tinged with gratefulness.

Among themselves, when one of the chimpanzees reaches out for reassurance (like Negra here):

and then receives the reassurance they are seeking (from Jamie in this case):

I imagine there’s some thankfulness that’s part of what the reassurance-seeker experiences.

There was a more dramatic experience last fall when we had to suture Jody’s eyelid that I couldn’t help but believe that Jody was thankful for the humans, even though we had to do something that she otherwise would not have appreciated.

And then there are just the little everyday moments when the chimpanzees do a little something that makes me wonder if they are feeling grateful, like when old friends visit and walk with Jamie or today when I caught Missy’s gaze as she turned from the window she was looking out, and she proceeded to walk over and let me groom her back through the fencing.

I can’t say for sure if Missy was thankful that I was there to share the moment with her, but I can say definitively that I felt a whole lot of gratitude.