Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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young's hill

Something’s Different

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See if you can relate: you have a distinct feeling that something’s different, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is. That’s how I felt this morning.

It wasn’t overly warm, but it felt nice outside. With the weather in mind, I tried to be quick with the morning routine so that all of the chimps could get outside – Jamie’s group on the hill and Willy B’s group into the chute.

When I let Jamie’s group onto the hill, all seven chimps flowed out.

The first order of business was trying to see who was in the chute:

Even Negra, who often chooses nesting over going onto the hill made a short foray, in all of her Negra glory (I like the bonus Missy action shot in the first photo):

Watching Negra go outside made me realize what was so different about the morning. No wind!

Having lived in Kittitas County for a total of fourteen years, you would think the lack of wind would be something I’d immediately notice. It’s not the windiest place in the world, but it’s the windiest place I’ve ever lived.

Historically, spring, which we are rapidly approaching, is the most gusty. But this morning was as still as… (insert something that’s really still).

I think the chimpanzees noticed too.

Missy and Annie started a game of chase:

Burrito waited for me to catch up to him for a walk (me on the outside of the fence, of course):

Then he spotted Foxie and Jamie on one of the structures:

so he decided to join them instead:

I got some photos of Willy B, Mave, and Honey B in the chute, but they didn’t pass my approval for posting on the blog. When Mave went back inside, I followed her around to take a few other photos.

Get ready to sigh with affection at Mave’s gorgeousness…

Here she is in the lower portion of their current indoor area:

And here’s a close-up of Mave grooming herself in the mezzanine. There are many, many things about Mave to love (as the video from yesterday illustrates), but I discovered something specific with the photo below. All of those wonderful wrinkles below her eyes when she’s scrunching up her nose! Big sigh. I’m smitten all over again.

I posted another sigh-worthy photo of Mave on our Instagram account – go look if you didn’t catch it earlier.

Of the three new chimpanzees, Mave has the most pals right now.

Surprisingly, of Jamie’s group, Burrito, Annie, and Missy are tied for the fewest pals. Maybe someone reading this will give Honey B, Willy B, Burrito, Annie, or Missy some love by becoming their Pal?!

Don’t forget that the sanctuary will receive a bonus $20 for every new pal that signs up in the month of February and $10 for every new Bovine Buddy thanks to a generous donor. Share the love!

The One with all the Sun

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You guys! I don’t want to jinx anything… But the sun is out, you can feel the warmth, and there were some really happy chimps! Fingers crossed this means spring is coming early. Please enjoy all these photos of the chimps basking in the sun.

Neggie took a small stroll:

Missy and Annie were sprinting all around the Hill, all day:

Burrito really enjoyed walking around with all the ladies:

I was able to capture a group action shot of almost everyone scattering onto the Hill in the morning when it first opened:

Jamie building her nest:

And modifying her blankets:

Mave grooming herself:

Honey B :

If your heart wasn’t melting before, it will be:

Honey B was just being so silly and funny. So funny that I would actually laugh out loud. She would be eating breakfast than suddenly roll around on a barrel and burst into a full sprint out into the Chute! She put her fanny pack on and press it up to the enclosure to have you look at it. She than would take it off and offer for her caregivers to wear it. Honey B just seemed to be in a really good mood. I thought I might share 🙂

 

 

Run with the Wind

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The sun was out. The clouds were gone. But the wind was a force to be reckoned with. With weather forecasts predicting the winds to be in the range of 14 mph to 34 mph today, the wind could be heard all throughout the Chimp House.

When I gave the Group of 7 access to Young’s Hill, there were only a few takers to initially go out. Jamie and Foxie were the first to go out and conduct a patrol around their outdoor enclosure. As they came around to the last stretch of their patrol, both Jamie and Foxie were racing toward the Greenhouse.

Judging by Foxie’s sneer, she was not a fan of the wind and just wanted the patrol to be over with.

Missy initially watched as Jamie and Foxie began their patrol, but seemed to be at a crossroads on whether to join them or not.

But Missy is Missy, and without warning, shot out of the raceway onto Young’s Hill. So fast I was only able to lift the camera and get a somewhat blurry photo of her racing to catch up with Jamie and Foxie.

But the wind was too much for Annie. She stayed in the doorway between the Greenhouse and Young’s Hill and watched as Missy charged up the Hill.

Burrito took no time at all to make his decision: Stay in the Greenhouse and let the plexiglass paneling block the wind.

Negra decided to bypass all that. She remained in the Playroom, covered in blankets, basking in the rays of the sun through the window.

On the other side of the Chimp House, Willy B was eager to go into the Chute. He grabbed the best seat in the house so he could watch a train go by and the birds who are starting to return from their winter break.

Let’s hope this isn’t a false Spring so more outdoor adventures could be had.

A day in the sun

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I once had the great privilege of watching a mama coyote step out into the cool morning air of the forest, stop and look at me, and then look over her shoulder where I saw her very young pups exit their den and come tumbling after her, rolling and wrestling with each other, feeling perfectly safe and at ease and full of joy in the early morning light. It’s remained one of my most cherished memories actually, and I think of it often. When I opened the door to Young’s Hill for the seven this morning, that memory lit up in my mind’s eye again as I watched them literally spill out of the door and onto the hill together, Jamie in the lead, Missy and Jody wrestling and grabbing one another’s feet all the way up the hill behind Jamie, followed by Annie and Foxie chasing each other as they took their joy-filled procession around the perimeter.

As I followed the girls I caught sight of Burrito, hesitantly bringing up the rear. He has been accompanying them around the hill, but sometimes appears unsure about having to catch up on his own or being able to keep up with their speed. Burrito is healing so well, but understandably, he’s still working on gaining his full strength and stamina back. Once he saw that I was waiting for him he immediately did his patented hop and skip (I don’t think we’ve caught this on video yet, but it’s an adorable little springy-bouncey-kick-of-the-back-legs thing only B does) which my heart did in turn at the sight of him, and we were off. We occasionally stopped along the way so he could rest and take in the sights and I just followed at his pace.

This one melts my heart a little. Whenever I’d slow down, he would give a little jump and make sure I was still coming:

Annie sat silently for the longest time, just taking in the view and the sunshine:

It was just one of those lucky days when all ten of the chimpanzees concurred with my plans for shifting and cleaning today so that right after breakfast everyone was able to scoot outside, where they remained for the majority of the day! It’s been possibly the warmest, sunniest day we’ve this winter and everyone was basking in all the light. **A sidenote for those who may be wondering: Mave, Honey B and Willy B continue to have frequent opportunities to access their own private courtyard along Young’s Hill, but they haven’t been ready to leave the comfort and familiarity of the chute yet and that’s okay. They’ll get there, or not, in their own time and way. In the meantime, they seem to thoroughly enjoy hanging out in the chute, watching the other chimps, hooting and hollering, taking in the sights and the sun. And to be honest, they still tend to spend the majority of their time inside even when they have access to the chute. But it’s always their choice, just as it should be.

It didn’t take long for Jody and Foxie to realize that Mave, Willy B, and Honey B had chute access and could be spied upon from their spot on Young’s Hill:

I looked up to see Negra multi-tasking from her favorite spot in the playroom: baking in the sun, taking in the view and keeping an eye on the neighbors while blowing an occasional kiss to caregivers:

These were from a couple days ago when there was still a dusting of snow on the ground. It’s just so heart-lifting to see everyone enjoying these sunny, crisp midwinter days outside, or indoors from a variety of sun puddles.

Foxie and Strawberry Shortcake:

Missy:

Jody searching for an ice treat:

I’ll end with a quick story from this morning. If you’ve been following the blog awhile you are probably aware of Burrito’s complete and utter obsession with eating snow this season. He’s always loved it, but this year is a whole other level of snow snack love. Before we’re even fully in the chimp house in the morning, he makes sure we know the first order of business is to get him a snow snack immediately. And I do mean immediately. He’s madly blowing raspberries, kicking the caging and pointing out the window and will NOT be ignored (not that we would ignore him 😉 ). We’re only to happy to oblige, but with these spring-like days the snow is all but gone. But yesterday, I found one remaining pile down the driveway and along the shady side of the barn. So staff caregiver Chad was sent on a mission this morning and returned a bit later with a hammer, frozen fingers and two buckets of snow, much to B’s delight. Now Burrito’s latest thing is to finish up the day by having a final snow snack before bed as well! We are going to have to buy bags of ice and fire up the snow-cone machine before long to keep him in snow snacks year-round I guess.

Sanctuary and Enrichment

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As many of you all know, there are many different ways to enrich a chimp’s life. And here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest we have many different forms. We provide toys that the chimps like, blankets for nesting, food puzzles, and forages. We try really hard to find the chimps favorite items such as boots/books for Jamie, dolls for Foxie, wooden blocks for Burrito, Slinkies for Willy B, and etc. We also try to have their favorite produce, but also make sure they have a variety so they do not get bored of what they eat! Most importantly, we provide an outdoor area for the chimps to go outside. To see the chimps run freely and see no bars above their heads is Sanctuary to me and I hope them too.

As you will see in the video Anthony moved a giant mirror from the Greenhouse to the Mezzanine. We knew Willy B, Honey B, and Mave liked looking at themselves through our phones and cameras, not unlike us, it is natural for us to look at ourselves while we pass a mirror. Just as we thought the three loved it! It even makes a great displaying tool! Honey B spent a lot of time looking into it, climbing on it, and swinging it around. The other section in the video is of the seven chimps walking around the perimeter outside on Saturday. Jamie and Burrito lead the walk, Missy sprints to catch up, eventually Foxie joins at the last leg of the walk, and it ends with Jamie and Foxie chasing each other down the Hill. I quietly finish the walk with Burrito. I was reflecting on that walk and I am so thankful to see the chimps exploring their outdoor area and looking so carefree. Whenever I see Burrito walking around the Hill it warms my heart that he has healed so well and all the girls will walk around with him.

Snow in the winter is another great way to enrich the chimps! Last night it dumped snow, when I went to open Young’s Hill for the seven this morning the chimps ran out to grab snow.

Negra:

Burrito:

Little Foxie:

Annie:

Transformations Then and Now

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There’s a memory I have of Foxie that comes to my mind frequently.

Foxie and her six friends arrived on June 13, 2008. Three days later, we put the finishing touches on the playroom and let the group into that large indoor space for the first time.

Here’s the memory, which I mentioned on the blog the day it occurred: Foxie spent a good 20 minutes walking all around the perimeter of the playroom, stomping. Foxie was born in a laboratory and the playroom was most likely the largest space she had ever been. She was 31 years old at the time.

Back then, I was eager, impatient even, to be able to give the chimpanzees more space and more freedom, but our budget dictated that we build the sanctuary around them as we slowly raised funds. It wasn’t until the end of August, a little more than two months after they arrived, that the seven got to go outside for the first time.

What we used to call the outdoor area we now refer to as the greenhouse, but this sunny, breezy, caged space served as their outdoors for three years, and was the only outdoor access some of them had ever experienced in their lives.

The construction of Young’s Hill, the open-top electric-fence enclosure that is now the outdoor habitat, took years of raising funds and planning followed by several months and many, many volunteer hands to construct. The chimpanzees had a front row seat to the construction.

Then, the day arrived. September 20, 2011, all seven chimpanzees poured out of the raceway and onto Young’s Hill, named after donors Karen and Don Young, for the first time.

Guess what Foxie did? She walked the entire perimeter (like she did with the playroom for the first time), then went back inside and didn’t go back out for over a week. Jamie, who was an old hand at exploring the hill by then, showed her and Jody some encouragement, which we captured with the point and shoot camera we were using at the time.

Fast forward more than eight years to today, and Foxie is often the lone chimpanzee on the hill, particularly when the habitat is covered in one of her favorite snacks – snow!

I took the opportunity to do a little shoveling today, and Foxie definitely appreciated my efforts that gave her access to unlimited snacking.

As I’m thinking back on what seemed to me at the time to be the sanctuary’s painstakingly slow transformation from “definitely far better than where they came from” to a sanctuary that is pretty darn impressive, along side Foxie’s gradual transformation from wary to intrepid explorer, I am also thinking about the new three chimpanzees who  joined the sanctuary last August.

Things haven’t gone to plan, exactly. We hoped that Jamie would be guiding Mave out onto the hill, Honey B would be running along with her mom Missy, and Willy B and Burrito would probably be palling around in the greenhouse. We saw moments of this when we were working on the integrations, but the fights that also accompanied these budding relationships and the subsequent injuries told us that we would have to go to Plan B.

Luckily, we have a Plan B! We knew we would need one because integrations are never guaranteed. So, right now Honey B, Mave, and Willy B have a space that’s definitely better than where they were before. Their first explorations outside were a little frightening, so when we open the door at the end of the chute now, they simply stare. But we’ve created a courtyard outdoor space for them and maybe, come warmer weather, they will gather up their courage to explore. It’s up to them.

Come spring, we will be building more sanctuary around them. We will be adding two more playrooms and two more greenhouses so that we can bring more chimpanzees here this fall and so the three can have much more space than what they have now in what we refer to as Phase 1.

We also have plans to expand and divide Young’s Hill so two groups can have separate electric-fenced enclosures. We have received a donation towards this specific work from Jennifer Douglas, and the new section of the hill will be named in memory of James Douglas, who was a long-standing board member and whom we miss very much.

Once we have the (considerable) funds, we will also build a large enclosed outdoor area (think the greenhouse without the panels, but much bigger) for variety and in case there are chimpanzees who come to CSNW who cannot or will not go into the electric fence enclosure.

A few years from now, I wonder what I’ll be reflecting back on in amazement.

I am looking forward to seeing big transformations again, but I am also glad I get to see the beginnings. And I’m glad I am able to witness the little things that happen each day that we are able to share with all of you.

Burrito’s Walkabout Reunion

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Today was weird, weather-wise. It started out super windy, then the wind subsided and it was nice enough for some outside time for the chimpanzees, then it snowed like it was going to never stop, until it stopped less than an hour later, and finally the sun announced itself as confidently as a spring day, completely erasing all traces of the snowstorm.

We talked it over with Dr. Erin and decided that, with the sun shining, and despite Jamie and her crew being a bit on edge earlier in the day, it was time for Burrito to go back with his group. I was nervous. His recovery has been long and he’s not back to his full strength, but when I went to “talk” to him, he pulled on the door to the greenhouse, letting me know that’s what he wanted to do. I held my breath and hoped for the best. Sometimes that’s all you can do with chimpanzees.

Because he’s been having social time with a few friends in the greenhouse these last weeks, I first let Jamie, Jody, and Foxie in with him and gave them all greenhouse access.

I thought he would be very keen to get back into the playroom since he hasn’t had access to that space in weeks, but when I opened the door to the playroom, Missy and Annie went out and the whole crew (minus nesting Negra), took off for a patrol around Young’s Hill.

It was glorious.

Lucky for you, J.B. followed along and captured some video of the walk, while I got a few photos.

He looks good out there!

 

Here he is between Jamie and Foxie:

 

Missy waiting for him:

When he got into the playroom finally, he and Negra greeted each other enthusiastically, and then everyone went about things as though no time had passed. Right now he is sleeping in the loft of the playroom.

We are still monitoring an injury on one of his toes and he sometimes walks on his wrist, but overall he’s doing great, and the extra exercise and social companionship will hopefully serve him well. Now we just need to convince the “girl gang” to stay calm for a while.

In case there is any lingering questions – we do not have plans to integrate Burrito with Willy B, Mave, and Honey B because of the conflict that caused Burrito’s injuries. Maybe there will be structured social time (“play dates”) in the future between members of the different groups, but maybe not, and not for sometime, in any case.

So, we’re back to the original seven on the old side of the building and the new three on the new side, with plans to start construction as early as we can in the spring. The next phases will give Willy B, Mave, and Honey B more space and will allow us to bring in another group of chimpanzees.

We’re looking forward to whatever the future holds, but today it was just nice to see Burrito outside with old friends in the sun.