Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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Eye gaze

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Primatology is such an interdisciplinary field—it’s a mix of anthropology, psychology, zoology, biology, and ethology—and depending on a primatologist’s background, they have very different interests. If you have an anthropology background for instance, you might be interested nonhuman primates from the perspective of human origins for group size, culture, linguistics, and so on.

My background is in psychology, so in many of my classes we studied comparative cognition of nonhuman primates and humans. One thing comparative psychologists study is theory of mind. Do nonhuman primates have a theory of mind? That is, do they understand that other individuals have different beliefs, desires, and perception than their own? There’s a ton of behavioral measures that researchers use to determine if an individual—nonhuman or human—has a theory of mind.

One behavior that is evidence of a theory of mind is eye gaze and joint attention. Chimpanzees, like humans, communicate with eye gaze. They use it with each other and with humans, too. For instance if some food has dropped just out of reach, Burrito might get a caregiver’s attention by making some noise, and when they approach him he will look straight toward the food item. If we follow his gaze we see the peanut he’s trying to get. Things like this happen all the time, and for us, common sense would say that of course chimpanzees have a theory of mind. Burrito understands that until he grabs my attention and points it out to me, I am not aware of the peanut lying just outside the caging.

Very frequently we are asked if eye contact is OK with chimpanzees. Well, it is! And they make eye contact quite frequently. It’s one way they communicate with us.

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Drinks from the hose

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Jamie often interrupts our cleaning routine to request a drink of water from the hose. She’s quite persistent; we’re usually not allowed to resume cleaning until she’s had her fill. Today, while Debbie and I were cleaning the front rooms, Jamie distracted us for probably fifteen minutes. We’re happy to serve, of course.

Happy Chimps

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The chimps here are so photogenic and always look happy, as you can see below:

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Every once in awhile we do catch them when they’ve perhaps woken up on the wrong side of the nest:

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The Great Baked Pumpkin

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Variety is the spice of life and we try to provide that for the chimpanzees even in their meals. Most of their diet is designed, as much as is possible, to simulate a natural chimpanzee diet and, as such, consists of primarily fresh fruit and vegetables. This is supplemented with nuts, seeds, and chow to provide protein sources.

Now it can, on occasion, become a challenge to accommodate personal preference in addition to providing creative variation whenever your options are fruit or vegetables. Often the refrigerator is full of squash varietals, especially during the fall and, as it happens, the chimpanzees are not that fond of raw squash.

I’m not sure who first thought to bake the squash but whoever it was deserves chimpanzee food squeaks! It turns out that, although the chimpanzees would rather not eat squash raw, if you bake it it becomes an exciting and delectable treat. So, in the spirit of fall baking and for the sake of a little novelty, I decided to see what happens if you bake and serve pumpkin for dinner. The result?

Seven thrilled chimpanzees, with the accompanying food squeaks of joy. Baked pumpkin, for the win!

Baked pumpkin dinner:
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Here is Missy (on the left) and Foxie (on the right) being served some delicious baked pumpkin in the greenhouse:
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Jody (on the left) and Jamie (on the right) enjoying the pumpkin:
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And, last but not least, Annie eating her serving of pumpkin:
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First snow

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It’s been a pretty mild fall / beginning of winter, and we finally got our first snowfall at the sanctuary overnight. It was just a dusting, but Missy was VERY eager to get outside for a taste.

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Jamie also went out quickly to get a snack.

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Jamie with handfuls of snow

We were wondering if the colder weather might slow down Jamie’s desire to walk around the hill. The answer is no. So far four walks and counting. She did wait until the snow melted, though. Missy joined Jamie on one of her walks. She gave us a big head start then ran full-speed up the hill. You can see a photo on her Facebook page.

 

Speaking of Facebook, a few weeks ago we asked on our Facebook page how fans became interested in chimpanzees. The answers were really interesting. One person recalled the video of the chimpanzees at CSNW first experiencing a big snowstorm, which was shared on a couple of news stations.

The video, which is now almost five years old, is posted below. That was before we put the panels on the greenhouse, so really before they had a greenhouse, and long before they had the 2-acre Young’s Hill. The chimps are leaning out of front room #4 into what we called the outdoor area then. Listen to those happy food squeaks and watch the prehensile lips in action!