Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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snow

A welcome distraction

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I’m happy to report that our patient is doing very well. He’s taking his meds without too much cajoling, leaving his bandage on, and even playing with his caregivers. This last procedure doesn’t seem to have phased him much at all. It may even feel like a relief.

Typically, chimps in recovery require lots of distraction techniques to keep them from removing bandages and picking at their sutures. You can’t just stick a cone on a chimpanzee, so instead we stick random pieces of surgical tape all over their bodies and occasionally add “distraction sutures”, which are shallow absorbable sutures that the chimps can focus on without causing any harm to the actual incision. Overwhelm them with things to pick at and just maybe they won’t pick at the one that matters. At least not right away.

But none of this was necessary, because we woke up to a couple inches of snow this morning and it’s all Burrito can think about. Snow balls. Buckets of snow. Snow drizzled with juice. I don’t remember him being this crazy for snow in winters past, but it is a welcome distraction right now.

Warming up to the cold stuff

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Was it just a week ago that I was wondering out loud if the new three would grow to appreciate snow?!

Check out the video of Willy B and Honey B clearly appreciating the buckets of snow we have been bringing inside.

The first clip of Willy B cracks me up every time – drop one ball of snow and another magically appears!

Snow: Treat or Trick?

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Burrito, Annie Jody, Foxie, Missy, Jamie, and Negra arrived in June of 2008. Their first experience of snow at the sanctuary (though they may have encountered it earlier in their lives) was almost exactly eleven years ago today. If you can believe it, we’ve been doing the blog this entire time, so you can take a look back at that post, which includes a video, right here.

That was before the greenhouse was a greenhouse with a roof and removable walls, so the chimps just leaned outside of their indoor rooms and grabbed handfuls and mouthfuls of snow. Seriously, watch the video.

It was such an exciting and endearing first at the sanctuary that Seattle’s King 5 television station shared the video on air.

Eleven years later, snow is still an exciting winter treat that produces anticipation and food grunts. There are many, many blog posts that feature snow. We often talk about how it’s the perfect food enrichment because it has zero calories, lasts a long time, and it’s both plentiful and free this time of year.

Here are some photos from today of Jody finding some ice and snow for snacking:

This one of her scurrying inside with her quickly diminishing treat is a little blurry:

Burrito was making raspberry noises at me this morning, and I thought he was trying to convince me to get him a banana–he knows I’m a big sucker and have been giving him pretty much whatever he wants as he recovers. Eventually, I realized what he actually wanted was some of the good stuff that had blanketed the outdoors.

He was pleased when I finally figured it out and gave him a special delivery:

Mave, Willy B, and Honey B’s reaction has not been the same. They do not know what the fuss is about at all.

Mave spent quite a bit of time in the chute today with the sun shining, but she didn’t go down to the area that still had snow:

I tried to convince Honey B that it was a a great treat by eating some myself and then placing some in the fencing for her.

This was her reaction:

Will they grow to love it, or will eating snow remain a strange custom that these three chimpanzees from California do not appreciate? We’ve got a couple more months to find out.

First Snow Experience

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This morning was the first real snow of the year. We gave Honey B, Willy B, and Mave access to the chute, which was quite snowy! The three chimps came from California, so we were curious what their reaction would be to the snow. Today, Honey B seemed to be the only one who adventured out into the chute. However, Willy B and Mave did look curious. As enrichment we put snow buckets out, which they all seemed to enjoy. There is still more snow coming down, so there will be plenty more opportunities for all three to explore the snow!

Another New Start for Ellie/Buttons the Elk & Cautiously Adventurous Foxie

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You may have read J.B.’s post last month about our neighborhood elk and her new chance to live a life in the wild. Well, to no one’s great surprise, she did not take to the wild life.

Yesterday, Ellie the elk was moved to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle where, after a quarantine period, she will be introduced to two females and a male elk (with two more females to join soon from Northwest Trek). There were several stories about the move in the local press, because Ellie (better known as Buttons) is quite the celebrity. I thought the story in the Yakima Herald contained the most information.

It’s never a happy day when a wild animal is put into captivity, but she was clearly not adapting to the truly wild life. In an ideal world, Ellie wouldn’t have faced that choice so late in life, but she did. She was at the mercy of those who are tasked with handling wildlife – in this case, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife. In many situations with a habituated wild adult animal, the animal is put down. Scott McCorquodale of WDFW, however, went out of his way to find a different solution for Ellie.

We are happy that the zoo agreed to make a home for her where she will have another chance to be with her own kind and where her many human friends can keep tabs on her. Wouldn’t it be great if more zoos were able to provide homes for animals like Ellie?

We are REALLY hoping it works out for her, and we remain available to help if she’s not able to integrate with the elk at the zoo. There’s a small celebration for Ellie/Buttons on March 27th for anyone who’s local. Here’s the Facebook page about the event.

Below is a video from 2014 of Jamie and Ellie:

In chimpanzee-specific news, the chimps, as I suspect many humans in the area, were outside this morning enjoying what genuinely felt like spring!

To set the scene, when I opened the door to give the chimpanzees access to Young’s Hill, Missy raced outside with Annie, Foxie, Jody and Burrito following her (Jamie and Negra remained in the greenhouse finishing their breakfast). All five of them walked the full path around the perimeter, which was clear of snow thanks to J.B. plowing a few weeks ago.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, I spotted Foxie and Burrito coming down the other side and saw that Foxie was thinking about veering off the path well-traveled onto the hard-packed snow.

She checked in with Burrito, but he was not interested in this adventure and continued on.

Foxie is known to be simultaneously adventurous and cautious, so she wasn’t about to just nonchalantly stroll onto the icy snow. She needed to test it out by first punching it and then putting just some of her weight on it.

When she was satisfied that it could hold her full body weight, she took a couple of tentative steps:

Jody, in the meantime, was watching all of this from below. Jody, being the manager/den mother of the group, seemed a little concerned. I’m not sure if it was because Foxie was the last one still up the hill or if Jody thought Foxie’s steps onto the snow were ill conceived.

In any case, Jody went up to collect Foxie, and Foxie obliged by following her back down the hill – on the proper path.

Negra Time

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Negra isn’t featured on the blog as much as some of the other chimpanzees because she’s often not part of “the action” at the chimp house (unless it’s spring and she’s outside eating grass – we can’t wait for those days!).

Negra seems to prefer solo quiet time. She also spends a lot of her time high up where it’s not as easy to get good photos and video.

And she operates on her own schedule. While the rest of the group might eagerly line up by the raceway in the morning to get the first pick of the snow, Negra instead chooses to go back to bed.

But then, an hour or so later, we’ll see her with some snow of her own – maybe she ventured out and retrieved it herself, or many she convinced one of her friends to hand over some of their haul (she can be very convincing). Either way, she doesn’t miss out on what each day has to offer, she’s just on Negra Time.

After the Storm

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The days after a snowstorm (or series of snowstorms) are so wonderful, aren’t they? It’s like reawakening to a changed world.

J.B., with the help of volunteer Jonathan, made some pathways in the snow for the chimpanzees today. The chimps watched the work being done for them from the greenhouse. When everything was ready for them, they went outside to stretch their legs a bit, take in the landscape, and get some snow to snack on.

Burrito following Annie:

Jody:

Jody and Missy:

Foxie:

You may have already guessed that Negra wasn’t with the first expedition of the morning, but instead stayed inside until afternoon:

Jamie, meanwhile, was preoccupied with a couple of magazines. In fact, she’s more preoccupied with photos of boots than with boots themselves lately.

She did take the time to go outside to grab a big chuck of snow after lunch before returning to a magazine: