wildlife waystation

Glorious Greenhouses

July 10, 2021 by Diana

I have to really hand it to J.B. for his greenhouse design and Gary from Sage Mechanical for putting it all together plus adding some special touches.

These new greenhouses are truly a chimp’s dream.

Yesterday was the first day that I was cleaning in one of the new playrooms with the new group of six chimpanzees on the other side of the windows in a greenhouse. I snapped some quick photos on my phone through the window to give you a sense of the chimpanzees’ perspective.

That view!

All of the new six like to take advantage of the vertical space and can often be found up high on the benches at the edges of the greenhouse. There are some great spots to observe the neighbors.

Lucky watching the neighbors from a high bench in a greenhouse.

Cy even took a minute away from his magazines to watch Willy B in the Courtyard today:

At Wildlife Waystation, the indoor space for the chimpanzees was much smaller than at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, and they spent most of their time in their concrete-floored, chain-link fenced space. We were all pleasantly surprised that they walked on the grass in their new greenhouse habitats right away. The grass is an experiment for us in these new spaces, one that so far is working well.

Though there are many differences, the greenhouses are probably most similar to what they are used to at Wildlife Waystation. During the day, there is usually at least one chimpanzee out there, and sometimes all six of them are in one greenhouse or another. During their first week they were in the greenhouses well after we had closed up for the night.

Last night around 7:30, I was outside wandering around. The sanctuary property was full of activity. There was a doe grazing in the pasture near Young’s Hill. The bovine family had gotten up from their daytime shady spot and they too were spending the cooler evening hours grazing. Ground squirrels and the occasional marmot were scurrying about, always in a hurry. The cliff swallows that have taken over the eaves of the new addition to the chimp house were soaring and dropping and diving, undoubtedly getting their dinner of insects.

As I approached the chimp building, however, there wasn’t even the hint of anyone stirring. I walked around the outside of the fence behind the new greenhouses and did not see a soul.

It made me feel disappointed for a fleeting moment, because it’s nice to see the chimps among the bamboo and logs and grass, with the sky as the backdrop, but then I smiled. Sometimes I even have to remind myself that it’s not about what I want or what I think they should be doing; it’s about giving them choices and letting them figure out what they want.

I pictured all six of them–Cy, Lucky, Gordo, Terry, Rayne, and Dora–sleeping soundly in their nests made of blankets and paper, in the special spot they chose for themselves, indoors in the new playrooms, perhaps with a newfound sense of safety and security.

Comin’ in HOT

June 28, 2021 by Anthony

Hey everyone! It’s been a long week so far.

For one thing, the scorching heat is r e l e n t l e s s .

Today brought record-setting temperatures to Oregon and Washington. Tomorrow will have more of the same. For comparison, it’s hotter than Guy Fieri’s wardrobe over here.

For actual quantitative reference, tomorrow’s forecast shows Cle Elum being 110 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hotter than it’s ever been in the state of Florida (109F).

That’s correct. Our town nestled among the snow-capped Central Cascades will have higher temperatures than they’ve EVER HAD on ANY DATE in FLORIDA. It will also be hotter than it’s ever been in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and at least fifteen other U.S. states and territories. Tomorrow would be the hottest day ever in Washington… if we hadn’t already broken that record today.

To cope, our staff has been closely monitoring the doors and windows, cranking all the electric fans, and consuming a steady stream of popsicles, sports drinks, and good ol’ fashioned water. As all the smart people say, hydrate to dominate, baby!

Despite the sweltering heat, we’re excited to report that all SIXTEEN chimpanzee residents are doing well, staying hydrated, and keeping cool. Of course, those sixteen residents include the six newest arrivals: Cy, Dora, Gordo, Lucky, Rayne and Terry.

This group of adult chimps has been called “The Lucky Six” during the campaign to send them to sanctuary, but we’ll also likely refer to them as “Cy’s Group” since he seems to be their undisputed chief. While our own medical and caregiving records have less mutable designations for each group (e.g., Group C), it will be nice to have an informal and familiar way to specify which group we’re talking about.

We’re still getting to know the six chimps in Cy’s group, but it’s already evident that they all have unique personalities and complex social dynamics. As is tradition, we’ll be shining a virtual spotlight on each individual over the next few months so that you can all get to know them as well. In case you missed it, Kelsi announced their arrival and posted a few portraits on Saturday, and Katelyn followed up with more photographs in yesterday’s post (which was dedicated to those who cared and advocated for the six newcomers at their previous home). For now, we’ll continue to share what we can on the blog when we’re not busy taking care of chimps!

For today’s blog, I threw together a video using clips that our staff have recorded over the past few days. We look forward to sharing more in the near future, so please stay tuned and be patient! The new guys are amazing and we can’t wait to tell you more about them!

A Royal Brunch

June 13, 2021 by Anthony

In addition to today’s video, I am going to share the following message from CSNW Co-Director Diana (with a few current photos sprinkled in):

Wow!!! The Queen’s Brunch brought out so many generous people – thank you all so much!

Negra and her friends are definitely feeling the love right now.

The bidding is going on through tomorrow night at 8:00pm PT, so there’s still time to secure those things you can’t live without! We set the donation goal for sponsoring the journey of the Lucky Six at $110,000 – that’s $100 for each mile of their journey. And guess what?! We are less than $10,000 shy of that very ambitious goal.

Maybe we’ll reach it by tomorrow night when the auction closes?

Thank you for this incredibly warm welcome for the new six chimpanzees.

We owe a big “thank you” to Cory, Brad, Kayla, and everyone at Auction Frogs for once again hosting the virtual event. Cory did an outstanding job as host-at-a-distance (with the help of Honey B and Negra, of course).

We just want to clear up some important information about the Lucky Six. They were born at a biomedical research facility. For the last 25+ years, however, they have been cared for at the Wildlife Waystation (WWS).

WWS rescued them from life as biomedical research subjects and was a pioneer in that respect. It closed in 2019 with 42 chimpanzees and hundreds of other animals needing to be re-homed. That’s when the California Department of Fish and Wildlife stepped in to manage the daily operations, still keeping on the caregivers who have been with the chimpanzees for decades.

The Chimpanzees in Need campaign then arose and is working to re-home the remaining chimpanzees, including the Lucky Six.

We are beyond thrilled to have been in a position to help the chimpanzees at Wildlife Waystation, including Honey B, Mave, and Willy B, and soon the Lucky Six. We look forward to continuing to help the campaign and see other groups of chimpanzees find their way to more accredited sanctuaries.

Sunday Leftovers

May 30, 2021 by Anthony

Today, I decided to share some “leftover” photographs of Mave’s birthday celebration that didn’t make it into earlier posts!

On Thursday, we threw a bash to commemorate Mave’s 32nd trip around the sun. The party- planned to perfection by Chad, the sanctuary’s Enrichment Coordinator- featured whole coconuts, giant banana leaves, pineapple bowls, and massive heads of iceberg lettuce. Anna posted and amazing video from the event on Thursday, and Diana shared another fun clip on Saturday of Honey B enjoying the sandbox well after the party!

Now, here are some still images to complement their media coverage of the festivities. Enjoy!

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Mave immediately grabbed a coconut and ran away to devour it in peace.

Then, Mave also annihilated an entire pineapple stuffed with iceberg lettuce.

Honey B preferred to drink her coconut by the pool.

(Sadly, I didn’t get any good photos of Willy B because he was running around scarfing down all the lettuce and stomping on coconuts.)

On the other side of the building, the neighboring group of chimps had an equally amazing birthday bash in honor of Mave. Since they can hear and see each other, it would be unfair to leave them out of the fun, and they seemed to appreciate all the same appetizers, entrées, and desserts.

Jody, forager extraordinaire, swiftly grabbed a coconut and then went back out for peppers afterward.

Annie found a coconut and loudly slurped all the liquid from inside. The sound was kind of gross, to be honest, but it was funny that we could hear it from 100 feet away.

Missy went after the lettuce, but had to acknowledge Jamie before she could run away and eat it all in privacy.

Negra’s strategy was to chase everyone else and beg them for food. It works sometimes.

Foxie “flew under the radar” during this forage. She was barely visible as she ate iceberg lettuce atop a distant platform.

After displacing Missy from her perch on the Treat Rock, Jamie harvested a bunch of coconuts, iceberg and peppers. Even though she paused to sip on a coconut, she had a hard time carrying it all back into the Greenhouse.

Burrito’s manner of transporting lettuce and coconuts made us all chuckle. At one point, he gave up trying to hold it all and just kicked his coconut downhill towards the Greenhouse.

Thank you to everyone who sponsors chimps, donates items, follows and engages with our online media and supports the sanctuary! Once again, you facilitated another memorable birthday party for Mave and her companions.

Honey B and the Sandbox

May 29, 2021 by Diana

As you can see, I “caught” Honey B in the sandbaox when I turned the corner. I love how many different things she tries with the sand.

For you blog readers, who are invested in the sanctuary on a deeper level than those who might just see a video we post on social media once in a while, I’m curious to hear your reaction to the statement I included within the video.

We are always discussing how to put sanctuary life into context and attempting to avoid inadvertently sending the wrong message about “cute” chimpanzees that might elicit the desire to own primates as pets. I refer you to this post by Anthony from over a year ago.

We’re really glad this issue is coming up more and more in our field, and I’m sure we will be reconsidering things we’ve posted in the past and doing more of these explanations within our posts, like we do on Instagram now too. Let us know your thoughts!

I hope you all were able to take the time to dig into something new today too, like Honey B.

If you haven’t already, check out the beginning of our online auction and don’t forget to tune in to the virtual Queen’s Brunch event in just a couple of weeks on June 13th!

An Honest April Fool’s Day

April 1, 2021 by Anthony

It was so, so hard to retrain myself today. After all, it’s the first day of the fourth month of this year, making it → A P R I L F O O L ‘ S D A Y ←, the best day of the year for light-hearted shenanigans.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to come up with feasible pranks around here. We can’t play dramatic jokes on the chimps because so much of their daily routine is done just the way they like it and mixing things up can cause a lot of confusion. We also take safety very seriously, so surprising each other with unexpected circumstances can be risky, too. On top of all that, we’re just too darn busy to go around the sanctuary playing practical jokes on each other and cleaning up the resulting messes.

That leaves one plausible alternative: trying to fool all of you.

I considered writing a fake blog post that would be somewhat absurd but almost believable. The champions of this art form are the writers at The Onion who have made satirical hoaxes into their own brand of journalism. They miss their target occasionally, but most of their stuff is on point. The Onion has been in the game for a long time, giving their staff time to cover all sorts of topics, from politics to science. If you want to read some of their animal-themed articles, I recommend:

“Jane Goodall Announces She’s All About Lizards Now”

“Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday”

“Zookeepers Confirm Pandas Not Mating Because They’re Scared of Messing Up Friendship”

Over the past couple of days, I mulled over some Onion-esque headlines that I could share today in an attempt to prank our blog followers. The actual, verified news in 2021 has been weird enough, giving me some inspiration. For example, I could have posted that:

We traded the cattle for a herd of goats because… you know.. goats.
J.B. made Burrito’s “Hey Girl” portrait into an NFT and sold it for $18.1 million
Missy and Annie are leaving the sanctuary to go on that cross-country road trip they’ve always talked about
Honey B is dropping her first studio album, titled Soap Bucket, under the pseudonym “Money B”
The crew divided Young’s Hill into ten smaller enclosures so the chimps can follow social distancing guidelines

The worst idea of them all was one so diabolical that I almost feel guilty for even thinking it up. I genuinely considered telling you all that today’s blog post would be the final one… EVER.

It was nearly perfect, as far as pranks go. Crucially, it’s actually quite believable. Apart from routine caregiving, the expansion has been the main priority for us lately. This growth necessitates fundraising for the new greenhouses, coordinating with contractors, painting and furnishing the new playrooms, and getting the records in order for the six chimpanzees we hope to welcome this summer. We are truly looking for ways to streamline our day-to-day operations to compensate for all the new tasks we’ve added to our schedules, and there’s now a precedent for spending less time on the blog. (In case you missed it, we recently had to post abbreviated blog entries for a few weeks while we participated in virtual training sessions.) My plan was to drop this sad news on all of you and then correct it before we resumed blogging tomorrow. Gotcha!

After discussing my idea with Diana and J.B., I was convinced that this joke could easily go too far. So many people use our social media as their primary window into the lives of the chimpanzees and cattle, whom they love from afar. Despite the tempting lure of April Fool’s glory, I just couldn’t break any of your hearts like that.

In light of all this, you’ll be surprised to know that the rest of this blog post is completely serious. There isn’t a single joke in here. Nothin’ but facts. Unaltered truth, fact-checked by yours truly. Exceptionally honest, through and through.

Besides April Fool’s Day, today was noteworthy for one main reason.

The contractors have finished their work in the new playrooms and these spaces are almost ready for chimps. There are now functioning hydraulic doors from the existing enclosures into each playroom. Notably, the crew had to modify some of the caging in the Mezzanine, resulting in a new “cubby”. Honey B, Mave and Willy B have been taking turns using the odd little space as breakfast nook and nesting cave, among other things. Poor Willy initially seemed nervous to touch the floor in this tiny little space, despite the fact that it’s the same material as the floors in his other indoor enclosures. He brought a plastic stool to sit on instead, limiting himself to a couple feet of head-room.

With the welding complete and doors working, J.B. was able to touch up the paint and Chad has begun hanging firehose “vines” for the chimps to climb on. Mave and Honey B supervised from the downstairs window and the new cubby, respectively. We plan to clean the new playrooms this weekend and then give some of the chimps access to them very, very soon. Stay tuned for updates!

Here are some additional photos of the new playrooms (including one of the vista from the upstairs windows).

Meanwhile, the contractors will begin securing the steel caging to the outdoor greenhouses. It may be difficult to visualize these new areas just yet, but you can trust us when we say that they’re going to be amazing multi-use habitats for Honey B, Mave and Willy B and six new chimpanzees. We already have a foundation and frame in place for these structures, so we’re confident that these spacious greenhouse enclosures will be ready before the summer!

P.S. I’m offering special internet bonus points to anyone who can find the marmot hidden somewhere in this post.

Riding the Waves

November 8, 2020 by Anthony

The chimpanzees began their morning with a raucous exchange of displays between the two neighboring groups. Screams, barks, drumming and hoots reverberated throughout the Chimp House. The neighbor effect is very real.

The following breakfast services were predictably tense. On one side of the building, Jamie was irate that the poor human caregiver wouldn’t give her someone else’s chow bag. The white paper bag sat awkwardly in the bottom of the food chute as Jamie loudly won the ensuing argument, but Negra quietly absconded with the prize during the chaos. In the Mezzanine, Willy B flexed his dominance by intimidating the female chimps and claiming Mave’s chow bags. Willy has grown more patient and tolerant in his time here, possibly due to our efforts to promote cooperative feeding. However, like all high-ranking chimps, he still needs to assert himself occasionally. This morning was one of those moments.

Generally speaking, chimpanzee behavior is characterized by short chaotic episodes during which the social hierarchy is challenged. These conflicts can either reform existing relationship dynamics or reinforce them. Instability and tension, however, are not just unpleasant; they’re downright exhausting. Adrenaline is unsustainable and requires a long reset afterwards. For this and many other reasons, chimps spend most of their time engaged in relatively peaceful activities such as grooming, foraging, and rest. I don’t know if chimpanzees have a “love language,” but low-key quality time would probably be it.

Given today’s hectic beginning, it was not surprising that the sanctuary’s residents had calmed down by lunch. The Seven were all about doing laps around Young’s Hill, while Honey B and Mave spent a large chunk of the day grooming and playing chase. Once our team was finished scrubbing enclosures for the day, I took a moment to go sit just outside the caging in the Mezzanine and observe the chimps. Willy B was the only chimp up there, lazily turning over some blankets and toys that had just been distributed by caregivers.

Willy B stared at me for a second, made a gentle hoo, and retrieved a fluffy blue blanket that had been draped over the nearby bench. He dragged it towards me with his knuckles, stopping only when the edges of the blanket were pushed up against the bottom of the steel mesh that separated us. Willy then leaned forward and, like a collapsing Imperial AT-AT, took a gargantuan nose dive into the shaggy pile.

He laid there for some time, face buried in the folds of the blanket. It was difficult to tell if it was a moment of pure exhaustion or zen-like bliss. I followed suit, sprawling out on the smooth heated floor. He lifted his head to reveal his brown eyes, which briefly showed a flash of skepticism, before apparently deciding that it was okay for me to join him on the floor. As I laid on my back, looking up at the passing clouds through the Mezzanine’s skylights, Willy began to take longer and longer blinks until he slowly fell asleep.

Even though I’m used to the routine by now, I noted how odd it felt to see Willy B gradually drift off into a light nap. He seemed to be at ease amid his surroundings despite being a hurricane of hair and muscle just hours earlier. I also felt slightly honored that he had chosen to be in my proximity without asking for anything else. I reminded myself that the never-ending waves of chimpanzee emotion, with peaks of chaos and troughs of serenity, are not something to be necessarily battled against. Rather, they are all part of the chimpanzee experience, adding value to each other. As Anna once told me when I was learning to manage the complex dynamics among these unique chimp individuals, “you’ve gotta ride the waves.”

I decided not to take any photos of Willy B’s nap; doing so would have likely caused him to sit up and stare into the camera lens. Instead, here are some photos our team has taken of chimpanzees resting during the peaceful eyes that separate many tumultuous storms.