Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
This day of sanctuary was sponsored by Sharon Saknit! Sharon shared this lovely message about her gift:
“It’s my birthday and I’d like to celebrate by giving back to CSNW!”
Sharon, what a generous gift to share your special day with the chimpanzees and the cattle! We truly appreciate getting to celebrate with you and the difference you’ve made in the lives of those who call the sanctuary home. Happy Birthday from all of us! Especially your handsome Pal, Willy B! 😉
Willy B!!
It has finally settled down in the Chimp House. There was a lot of commotion today. Nothing bad, but a lot of talking between walls. Willy B spent a lot of time in the Chute. This always makes the 6 ladies excited. They will scream, hoot, watch the 3 chimps in the chute with extreme focus, and try to make sure Willy B sees them. We found Willy B and Burrito head nodding towards each other a lot too, which was nice to see. Eventually, everyone on both sides calmed down and the rest of the afternoon there have just been piles of chimps grooming with each other.
Sometimes I cannot get over how handsome Willy B is:
Honey B watching J.B. outside:
Foxie and Burrito grooming by the window so they don’t miss anything happening by the Chute:
Willy B is a thief.
Bear in mind, it’s a very minor blemish on his otherwise flawless character. And he’s certainly not the first chimpanzee in history to steal. But it is a problem.
At each meal, Willy B takes what is his and then helps himself to everyone else’s. You can get away with that when you are 175 pounds of muscle. But Honey B and Mave need to eat, too, and none of us need all that drama. While we could isolate Willy B in a separate room during meals, that could lead to pent up frustration and it would certainly be logistically challenging at times. This is where positive reinforcement training comes in.
For many years, we’ve used positive reinforcement training to encourage the chimps to cooperate with medical procedures. Those same techniques apply to husbandry challenges as well. The other day, Anthony built a moveable “target” just for Willy B. After being trained to orient towards and touch the target, Willy B is now learning to remain wherever the target is placed, a behavior known as stationing. Stationing allows us to create some distance between the chimps while they eat. At the same time, he’ll learn that he will be amply rewarded if he remains at his station the entire time and allows the girls to receive their food. Taken together, this is known as cooperative feeding. Mr. Dominant Chimp gets the special privileges he deserves and no one goes hungry. Everyone wins.
This is something I have come to love about working with chimpanzees. You can’t force them to do much of anything, so you are required to demonstrate a little patience and humility. I often visualize it as a choice between trying in vain to dam up a stream and slowly and methodically carving out a new path for the water to flow in a more favorable direction. One day I hope to put this lesson into practice in other areas of my life but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
On a side note, there may be a reason why Willy B was so quick to learn to station. On the other side of the Frisbee there is a pattern with a reflective surface in which he can catch glimpses of his own beautiful face.
Now we may need to train him to look away from his own reflection long enough to eat.
Willy B never seems to tire of playing with his slinky.
It was a busy day in the Chimp House. We spent most of the morning cleaning up after Burrito’s super birthday bash yesterday, as well as training new interns enrolled in the Captive Care Certificate at Central Washington University.
When I found time to check in on the chimpanzees, it was almost difficult to find them. The Seven mostly kept close together the entire day, in nearly every hard to see spot in the nice, warm Playroom. It was almost like spotting glimpses of Sasquatch at the sanctuary. An arm here. A flash of fur there. A head poking out around the corner every so often.
Negra, on the other hand, is a tried and true type of person. She spent most of the day in her favorite spot in the Playroom soaking up as much sun as she could while waiting for caregivers to finish cleaning and preparing lunch.
Willy B also spent most of his day resting on one of his favorite benches in the Phase 1 area, waiting for the caregivers to finish cleaning and preparing lunch.
I did spot Honey B and Mave a couple of times out in the Chute area, but Honey B decided playing games of chase with me instead of allowing me to take photos (other than today’s main photo) was a better plan.
Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a fun New Year’s Eve, filled with people you love. We had an exciting forage to celebrate the new year. As tradition, the chimps had black-eyed peas, sparkling cider, baked squash, and pomegranates. Willy B seemed to really like the black-eyed peas. I prepared a small video, but typical, the internet is being funky. I hope that tomorrow will be better! In the meantime, please enjoy these photos.
The sun came out and I think everyone including Honey B enjoyed a little bit of Vitamin D:
Jamie:
I really like this one of Missy:
Foxie cleaning her plate:
Reflecting on 2019, this year has been a huge year and also a bit wild and crazy. We had so many highs and some lows too. I have been reflecting on this year a lot. The most amazing things have happened, like, the arrival of three new chimpanzees Mave, Willy B, and Honey B, we have a new building, we started introductions for the chimps, there was the most epic hug between Burrito and Mave, the potential for new relationships, and still so much more growth here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. CSNW has been waiting so long to bring more chimps home and we did it! I get emotional thinking about it. This alone is a massive accomplishment. So much good change has happened around here, even if it means it’s a tad bit more chaotic. 🙂
With those highs, sadly, came lows. I will say the big fight was one of the scariest moments in my career so far. I think back and I am so grateful for the staff I work with and the people I work for. Without this team of selfless and caring people this would have been an even more difficult process to go through. As you have read in previous blogs, any one of us would drop everything and run out the door for anyone for these chimps. Burrito’s recovery process has been long and incredibly exhausting. But Burrito is alive, he is getting back to his normal self, and that is all we care about! I so badly wanted new relationships for Burrito. And to see him almost have it was so amazing and devastating when it was all over. But, what I want most for Burrito is for his health and wellness. He may not get to make new friends, but we can all remember that hug. He has some very fierce lady friends to help keep him company.
So, I am excited for this new year. I think 2020 will have a lot in store for us! There will be growth, there will be fun, and mischief to be had. We are still getting to know the three and I hope with another year they will allow us to get to know them more and further our relationships with them. We hope to continue finding ways to make their lives better and find more choices for the ten chimpanzees’ future.
Cheers to the New Year!
Lounge into the New Year with Mave:
