Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

shelter

The Eyes Have It

by

I took some photos of Burrito this morning that caused me to admire his face and think about the chimpanzee facial features that I love.

burrito sitting

The top of my personal “awesome chimpanzee facial features” list is the brow ridge (also known as supraorbital torus, ridge, or arch).

Though much less pronounced in chimpanzees, humans have a supraorbital ridge too – our eyebrows normally sit near the bottom of our arches.

Each chimpanzee has a somewhat unique brow ridge – I wonder if you could identify a chimpanzee by a brow ridge “print” like a fingerprint.

I will never say that I have a favorite chimpanzee, but I will admit that I have a favorite brow ridge: Jody’s. I like how deeply arched it is with lots of wrinkles, giving it a decidedly heart-shaped appearance:

Jody eyes

 

Here’s a look at everyone else’s supraorbital tori:

 

Missy:

Missy

 

Negra:

Negra close-up

 

Foxie:

Foxie looking down

 

Jamie (that’s also her profile in the 2nd photo in this post):

 

Annie:

Annie close-up

 

Burrito:

Burrito upside down

 

A Day for a Family in Colorado

by

Today’s day of sanctuary was a gift donation for the Eilmeses in Colorado: Kurt, Erin, Isaac, Ace & Elyse with Happy New Year wishes from Kevin and Diane Eilmes. They gave this gift in the hope that their Colorado family enjoy the chimps as much as they do!

Thank you, Kevin & Diane!

 

Here’s a favorite video from the previous year that illustrates one of the most important aspects of sanctuary life for the chimpanzees – companionship:

 

 

And here’s a photo of Annie and Missy holding hands:

 

Foxie the Chimpanzee and Poppy the Troll

by

Foxie’s love of troll dolls started over eight years ago when she arrived at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. She still loves the old school trolls, but now that there’s a new DreamWorks Animation film called Trolls, and you can bet that Foxie is going to benefit from the marketing.

Foxie likes the songs by Justin Timberlake that are in the trailers.

Her favorite doll so far seems to be Poppy, whose voice in the animated movie is Anna Kendrick. With this description of Poppy, they do sound like kindred spirits.

poppy troll description

 

Foxie holding Poppy troll

Foxie holding Poppy troll

Foxie laying with Poppy troll

 

Tea & Play

by

Today’s enrichment theme was “tea party” so we took that literally and made two types of tea for the chimps to enjoy after we had finished cleaning their castle.

Post-tea time was spent on important things like diving into the nesting position, staring at a troll doll, and some lazy play with friends. Watch the video with sound.

Who can resist being thoroughly charmed by these chimpanzees?

 

A Missy in Motion…

by

Today was a great day!

Way back in the spring, Charlie Nickerson of Troop 80 in Seattle contacted J.B. about doing his eagle scout project to help the sanctuary. We’re not able to say yes to all requests we get from people interested in doing volunteer projects like this, but we had just had a bunch of fire hose donated, so J.B. got Charlie started on the idea of making some fire hose hammocks to add to the interest of Young’s Hill.

A whole group of people joined in the hanging of the two awesome new hammocks, including other members of Troop 80, Shawn (J.B.’s new right-hand maintenance volunteer), John, and two CWU students – Ruth and Kyle.

It was pouring when they arrived this morning, so the chimps didn’t mind not having access to their outdoor habitat. The team worked outside in the wet weather with J.B. while volunteer Rachel and I cleaned up the chimp house.

scouts hanging hammock 2

scouts hanging hammock

In addition to the two new hammocks, the group also hung fire hose in various areas on the hill, connecting structures to each other.

Luckily, by the time they were finished with all of this manual labor, the weather had cleared up. So, the hardworking team spread a forage on the hill for the chimps and watched all seven chimpanzees forage for their lunch and explore the new features of their habitat.

scout group watching

I took what seemed like hundreds of photos of the chimps enjoying these new features and foraging, and I’ve narrowed down a couple of series to share in this blog post.

You probably know that we celebrate Jamie’s birthday on Halloween, which is just a few days away, but Missy might have thought all the new fire hose was a present just for her.

I am calling the below series of photos: “A Missy in Motion Tends to be the Best Thing Ever.”

 

Here is Missy standing next to Annie. Take a moment to admire Missy’s thigh muscles:

Missy standing on bar

 

In her element, Missy tightrope walking and otherwise using existing and newly hung fire hose to traverse all over the hill:

Missy tightrope walking

 

Missy climbing

 

Missy traversing fire hose

 

Missy in motion

 

Later in the day, Missy discovered some food cleverly hidden in new fire hose wrapped around a log post:

Missy finding hidden food

 

Every once in a while, she would stop to rest:

Missy sitting

 

But not for long! Here she is climbing into one of the new hammocks:

Missy climbing on new hammock

 

I’d say it’s a hit:

Missy sitting in new hammock

 

 

This next series of Jamie I am calling, “Perfect Dismount”

Jamie tightrope walking

Jamie tightrope walking

Jamie hanging

 

A very cleverly hung piece of hose that Jamie couldn’t resist trying out:

Jamie swinging

Jamie swinging

Jamie swinging

Jamie swinging

Jamie swinging

Jamie dismount

 

Annie may have found her new favorite hangout:

Annie sitting in new hammock

 

Burrito explored a new hammock by himself later in the day:

Burrito checking out hammock

 

And then he peeked at us from the lookout:

Burrito lookout

 

Thanks to everyone who helped make the day a great one, including all of you reading and sharing this – your support makes every day great!

 

Autonomy and Confidence

by

Last month I wrote about “missing chimpanzee” Foxie, who has been doing a lot of solo exploring on the hill this summer. In May, Anna shared that Negra had been venturing out further on Young’s Hill than she had ever been before.

Well, we can add Burrito to this growing list of chimpanzees who have suddenly become more confident in the outdoor habitat.

As I was finishing up a walk with Jamie this afternoon, I came around to the front of the building and noticed the figure of a chimpanzee way up on the towers at the top of the hill. To my surprise, it was Burrito who was up there, walking across the shaky bridge, all by himself. I should mention that there was no food forage involved, so his motivation wasn’t tied to finding a snack.

I rushed up to the observation deck and got a few photos as he climbed down from the lookout and slowly walked back toward the greenhouse:

web_burrito_climb_down_tower_yh_dg_img_7650

web_burrito_behind_fall_grass_walk_yh_dg_img_7669

web_burrito_walk_fall_grass_alone_yh_dg_img_7683

As I took these photos, I was grinning like a fool, and I called down to Burrito to tell him how great I think he is.

Like humans, chimpanzees experience varying degrees of anxiety and fear. In some ways, Burrito shows more anxiety than some of the other chimpanzees. It took him a long time to get comfortable in the greenhouse when it was first completed in 2010, even when the ladies were spending the majority of their time out there (read this blog post from Elizabeth from March 2010 and watch the video of Burrito finally making a breakthrough and spending some time in the greenhouse).

And now, this summer, five years after the chimpanzees were given the 2-acre outdoor habitat that we call Young’s Hill, they are still continuing to gradually embrace and explore their autonomy.

I wonder what they will be doing five years from now.

 

Missing Chimpanzee

by

We take safety very seriously here at the sanctuary and recognize that humans make mistakes, so we have checks and double checks as a routine part of entering enclosures. We never enter a chimpanzee space unless we have verified that the chimpanzees are secured in another part of the sanctuary, so part of our safety protocols require that at least two people check that all of the chimpanzees have been positively identified outside of the area we are going to enter and that the doors and locks are secure.

If the chimpanzees cooperate, we do all of the full cleaning in the first part of the day, but we also spot clean the playroom (the largest part of the chimps’ indoor area) while the chimpanzees are having dinner.

One day last week, I was serving the chimpanzees their dinner in the greenhouse and Anna was operating doors. She successfully closed off the playroom in order to spot clean and came up to make sure all of the chimpanzees were out of the playroom. Normally, this is one of the easiest checks of the day, because the chimpanzees are lined up ready for their evening meal, so it’s easy to identify everyone and then check doors. This day, however, we could not find Foxie.

We checked in the front rooms, in the greenhouse, and scanned Young’s Hill. Nothing. I then climbed the ladder to see into the loft of the playroom, but she wasn’t there either. All of the other chimpanzees had been served their food, and Foxie was just missing. This never happens. I admit we started to panic just a little. We checked all of the areas again. No Foxie. Finally, we see a figure way off in the distance on the hill coming toward us.

Foxie?

Foxie sauntered through the grass and slowly made her way into the greenhouse as though she didn’t have a care in the world.

Today, as I was taking photos of Foxie carrying a Dora the Explorer doll on her back, it occurred to me that Foxie has chosen the perfect mascot and symbol of her new life at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.

Foxie with Dora

Foxie carrying Dora

 

Go Foxie. Go explore. We’ll save dinner for you.

 

P.S. Among the 80+ other items, there is a photo print of Foxie on canvas that is part of our Summer Biddin’ online auction. Get your bids in quick – bidding ends at 4:00pm PT tomorrow! 

biddin

 

Save