Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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shifting

A Miss-lead morning

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There comes a day in every caregiver’s career where you see a certain look in a chimpanzee’s eye.  The look of total determination from concentrate. If you see this look, you immediately know… your day just got a lot more complicated and you have a stubborn shifter on your hands. Missy is an infamously headstrong shifter and often chooses to stay in an enclosure rather than letting us close it off so we can safely enter it for morning cleaning. Over the years she has relaxed some and mostly chooses to shift with her group, but every now and then, the old obstinate Missy show’s her freckly face and we have to come up with a plan B for cleaning. Today was one of those days and she stayed in the Playroom at breakfast. Of course, she was perfectly happy to shift a bit later in our routine for a head of romaine lettuce so it all worked out in the end.

We all have a Missy in our life who adds just a little bit of challenge and keeps things interesting. A tip of the hat on this Tuesday to Missy and those with a similar strong will.

To Shift or Not To Shift

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Shifting occurs when caregivers are moving the chimps out of one space and into another, in order to clean the enclosures. We shift the chimps every morning, two to three different times so that we can clean every space. Our cleaning routines typically stay the same so that the chimps know what to expect. However, one of the many beauties of sanctuary is the fact that we don’t have a true schedule of where the chimps have to be at certain times (such as a zoo, where they may need to be on exhibit by a certain hour). While we have an ideal daily cleaning schedule in mind (typically from 9:30am-1pm), the chimps can say yes/no to our plans at any time.

After our first round of cleaning, we always put out a forage with greens (cabbage, lettuce, sometimes radicchio). While the chimps love greens, sometimes the forage alone isn’t motivation enough to shift. As we have discussed in many blogs before, Honey B is probably our #1 hold out (meaning she is less likely to shift with her group than anyone else), Negra is probably in the number 2 position, with the occasional Foxie, Dora, and Mave as runners up. While the cleaning day certainly goes by faster if all the chimps shift on-time, we don’t force anything. If Honey B doesn’t want to shift with her group, for example, she isn’t required to, and we will work around her while she hangs out alone or with team Mora when they occasionally don’t shift. Negra, on the other side of the chimp house, also has days where she prefers to stay in her warm, cozy Greenhouse nest and won’t shift back into the Playroom so we can clean the Greenhouse. Again, that’s okay and we will try at another time or the following day. Surprisingly, despite all of these ladies who always seem to question, “To Shift or Not To Shift?”, we manage to clean every space the majority of days!

The only times that we would absolutely need them to shift is in emergency situations, such as a rattlesnake or unusual bad weather. In emergency situations, caregivers would bring out high value foods (e.g. grapes or berries) to get the chimps attention and ask them to move to x enclosure or to vacate x enclosure (depending on the situation). We practice recalls regularly, so the chimps are familiar with the recall process and it should run fairly smoothly.

Today was a rough day for myself + the camera. I present to you the one photo that turned out…

Negra and the hair on her brow ridge:

The Holdouts

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We’ve given you a lot of Mora B footage as of late…

Are you tired of all the ridiculousness?  Are you sick of all the play faces?  The joy, the laughter, the shenanigans?

Are you sick and tired of Mora B?

Say it with me, folks.

HECK NO!!!

These girls just tickle us caregivers, even if they do create a longer cleaning schedule.

This clip does not include Mave, as she opted to stay in the chute while her sidekicks whooped it up in the front rooms.

So…how do we refer to a Honey B/Dora combo?  What say you?

Also, be sure your sound is on – you won’t want to miss all the laughter!

If you’d like to help supply the sanctuary with food, enrichment, medicines, supplies, and other necessities, please check out our Christmas in July drive and help empty our wish lists!

The Unification of the Stubborn Shifters

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As longtime blog readers might know, Honey B can be a challenge for staff when we are trying to close off certain enclosures for cleaning. She likes to throw an obstinate wrench in our best-laid plans. Lucky is also one of those chimpanzees that doesn’t always see the need to cooperate with the shifting schedule from time to time. Today Lucky and Honey B joined their strong willed forces together and stayed behind in the front rooms rather than shifting with their group during morning cleaning . Much to our surprise, their “quiet alone time” morphed into a wrestle session of epic proportions. Shout out to staff caregiver Grace for grabbing all the video for today’s blog!

Assistant To The Regional Manager

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Today it was my turn to shift on the new side of the building with Cy’s group. Shifting, in sanctuary parlance, refers to operating the chimpanzee doors that connect the various enclosures and ensuring that the chimps move between them so that we can conduct routine cleaning and maintenance. We typically structure our shifting routine around meals and forages, which helps to incentivize cooperation—the chimps enter a clean room to snack on sunflower seeds or lettuce and we close off the dirty room behind them. But it doesn’t take much to interrupt the routine. The chimps, possessing considerable intelligence and virtually unlimited free time, have the ability to decide whether we succeed or not. A single stubborn chimp or strategically placed toy can grind the whole morning to a halt.

I should point out that it’s not typically an adversarial endeavor. In fact, some of the chimps go out of their way to be helpful. For example, Honey B, while famous for her flagrant disregard for our cleaning routine in general, often plays Assistant to the Regional Manager while we’re shifting. As we start to move doors, she scans for any blankets or toys that might prevent them from fully closing and helpfully pulls them out of the way. She does this without even being asked. As I worked to close off Playroom 2 (Lupine) this morning, Honey B followed along with me and dutifully cleared each doorway. Of course, in doing so she stationed herself on the wrong side of the door, in a room I was trying to clear. So much for the routine. I remind her that the Assistant to the Regional Manager, regardless of her title, still has to eat breakfast with the other chimps.

The process of shifting inevitably leads chimpanzee caregivers to one of the most important lessons they will learn—never play mind games with a chimpanzee. It’s tempting to try to fool the chimps or lull them into complacency when they are disrupting the routine. You don’t want me to close that door? What if I walk away from the controls (…while my buddy Chad hides behind the fern, ready to close the door when you least expect it!)? It may work once if you’re lucky. And then that chimp will dedicate the rest of her life to thwarting your plans, just to spite you. That is not hyperbole.

Still, there are times when you must take advantage of an opportunity before it’s gone. At CSNW, we utilize several different kinds of chimp doors, and they all have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The newer wing contains mostly hydraulic doors, owing to a donation of equipment and material from the former Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute as it was being demolished. One of the downsides to these particular doors is that they are fairly slow, which leads to an all too common scenario.

By the end of this morning’s routine, I had given up on cleaning Front Room 5, as my Assistant had staked a claim to it and did not look to be changing her mind anytime soon. I reopened Playroom 2 and prepared to move on with the day. As I was leaving the chimp area, I noticed that Front Room 5 was empty. Surely, Honey B must have been camped on the other side of the door, watching my every move. I checked the monitor—she was in the Greenhouse. And so were most of the other chimps! This was my chance! I radioed Chad to tell him of my change of plans and raced to the controls.

When the hydraulic pump kicks on, the chimps can hear that doors are being operated. Before I even touched the lever, I heard a rumbling from the playroom. As Door G inched downward, the rumbling grew louder. The door slowly but steadily made its way down the tracks and would soon be low enough that a chimp couldn’t possibly fit through. It was almost there!

And then, before I knew it, that tiny opening was filled with a whole lot of…

…TERRY! He stopped the door in its tracks and, like Indiana Jones, he had squeezed his way through without a moment to spare.

We encourage cooperation with the chimps, rather than competition, because it’s better for their well-being. But let’s be honest, it’s also because we will always lose.