The CSNW human family continues to grow! Lisa Schuster is our newest part-time staff caregiver. Lisa has been in the chimpanzees’ lives for a few years now as a volunteer caregiver, and she is universally adored. Jody is overjoyed about Lisa’s new job (Lisa might by Jody’s favorite human ever), and Jamie always appreciates Lisa’s choice of footwear.
You can get in touch with Lisa at Lisa@ChimpsNW.org for questions, comments, or words of welcome.
This is the first of a series of guest blogger posts from researchers that work with free-living apes. Maureen McCarthy graduated from the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California. She is doing research with chimpanzees in Uganda and has a regular featured blog on Scientific American’s blog. Here’s her most recent entry that mentions Foxie:
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Their chorus of pant hoots gave them away in dramatic fashion. The chimpanzees we’d been looking for were nearby, and we knew exactly where to find them. Though farmland and trees blocked our view, we could hear that the chimpanzees had arrived at a particular fig tree laden with ripe fruits. As ripe fruit specialists, chimpanzees seek out fruiting figs like this Ficus exasperata. On a good day, we can use our knowledge of when these figs are ripening to help us find the chimpanzees.
We took a circuitous route through the gardens to a grassy hilltop with a clear, albeit distant, view of the Ficus. I dropped my backpack and pulled out my binoculars. I began to scan the tree in an attempt to identify the large dark figures foraging. I could make out the silhouettes of at least seven or eight chimpanzees, all foraging on figs or seated in the huge tree.
Chimpanzees feed in a Ficus exasperata tree. Photo: Jack Lester.
After observing their foraging for a few peaceful moments, I heard a jarring but familiar sound. A man working in a garden nearby shouted at the chimpanzees. Though the tree was in an isolated area of grassland several dozen meters from where he worked, he was clearly uncomfortable with their presence. A few threatening shouts were enough to convince the chimpanzees it was best to cut short their breakfast. They descended quickly from the fig. I now counted twelve chimpanzees as they walked in a single file line back across the grassland and to a small patch of forest nearby. As we watched them go, field assistant Nick commented that he felt sorry for the chimps.
At times like these, I am reminded of one of the most recurrent lessons from my research thus far: chimpanzees are surprisingly resilient. They may have waited until later to forage, or perhaps they found another source of nutrition (which, unfortunately, may have involved risky crop-raiding). However, as long as no one hunted them or set a mantrap to ensnare them, as is sometimes the case, they probably found something to eat and survived another day. Despite the rapid rate of forest degradation in their habitat, they have persisted. They continue to forage, reproduce, and tend to the complex political matters of chimpanzee life, even if these behaviors must be modified somewhat to fit a drastically altered environment.
I was again reminded of chimpanzee resilience when, on a recent visit to my mother’s home, I opened an old box to find my childhood collection of troll dolls. After a moment’s consideration, I decided to send them to a chimpanzee named Foxie. Foxie is a resident of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW), a sanctuary in Cle Elum, Washington that serves as home to seven chimpanzees. The “Cle Elum Seven,” as they are known, have lived in biomedical laboratories for most of their lives. They were involved in invasive hepatitis vaccine research and used for laboratory breeding. Foxie gave birth to five infants, but was forced to give them all up, just like so many other breeding female chimpanzees in laboratories. Perhaps as a fulfillment of the maternal behaviors she was never able to express, Foxie can now usually be found carrying a troll or other doll with her.
Foxie cares for a troll doll.
The caregivers who know Foxie and the other members of the Cle Elum Seven can attest to this adaptability. All seven have displayed drastic changes in both behavior and physical appearance since arriving at CSNW several years ago. The shift from a windowless laboratory basement to a spacious sanctuary with dedicated caregivers and outdoor access has—not surprisingly—had an unambiguously positive effect on them.
Why might chimpanzees be so adaptable to change? It may have aided the survival of their ancestors–and ours. For example, many primates regularly face drastic seasonal changes in rainfall, temperature, and food availability. Some primates have specialized adaptations that help them survive under harshly changing seasonal conditions. For chimpanzees, a learned knowledge of the fruit tree locations, even during periods of low fruit availability, is critical. Chimpanzees acquire this knowledge over a prolonged period of development, with high reliance on their mothers until full weaning at age 5, followed by juvenile and sub-adulthood learning periods lasting until age 15. A high degree of neural plasticity facilitates this learning ability. In humans, an especially high degree of plasticity may aid our strong reliance on learning. Plasticity may also play a key role in what we call resilience, enabling both humans and our chimpanzee kin to roll with the punches during trying times. For chimpanzees today, this may mean finding a new fruit tree when one due to ripen has been felled, or basking in the sun for the first time after decades inside a laboratory.
This post was originally published at Scientific American.
The site that we now call Young’s Hill was once just an empty horse pasture. Here it is in 2010, before we started construction:
A wide open pasture may be great for horses, but it’s awfully boring for chimps. And growing a forest from scratch takes a long time. Thankfully, we were introduced to Jackie Heinricher of Booshoot Gardens (now Provitro BioSciences) and she found a solution for us: bamboo!
We initially planted two groves on Young’s Hill and just recently planted some in the chimps’ greenhouse. It’s a great source of shade in the summer, and it’s also great for climbing, nesting, and eating.
Yesterday, we planted three new species of bamboo on the hill, including Phyllostachys nigra, which has beautiful black culms. All were generously donated to us by Provitro.
The chimps were really excited, though I admit it may have had a little to do with the corn, leeks, onions, and carrots that we spread around the hill.
We’ve never heard the chimps so vocal on the hill before. As they foraged, everyone was pant-hooting with excitement.
Foxie is always suspicious of new things, so at first she and Dora kept kept their distance from the new bamboo:
And Jamie wasn’t quite sure what to make of it either:
But soon everyone took a turn sitting under the new plants:
Yesterday was a great day for all of us and Negra must have gotten caught up in the excitement because she did something we have never seen her do before: she climbed up onto the shaky bridge!
Negra has lost over 10 pounds since coming to the sanctuary, and probably gained a lot of muscle, but she is still not in good enough shape to keep up with the activities of some of the other chimps. If she keeps this up, though, she may soon be giving Missy a run for her money!
We built a few of the structures on Young’s Hill specifically for Negra – they are close to the building and can be accessed without a lot of climbing. Maybe they’ll come in handy when she’s older because for now, Negra has decided that the whole hill is hers.
I’m pretty excited to announce that we’re going to be featuring some guest bloggers who work with apes in the wild! Our mission at the sanctuary is to provide quality lifetime care for the Cle Elum Seven, but also to advocate for apes everywhere. If you’re signed up for our Take Action list, you’ve probably received some action alerts from Eyes on Apes before. These are usually for issues that our nonhuman ape cousins face close to home, like the entertainment, pet, and biomedical industries.
Free-living apes are facing a whole different set of issues. In Africa their habitat is slowly being torn down, and the logging roads create access for hunters to easily hunt chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and a whole slew of other exotic animals and sell their meat on the black market (it’s called the bushmeat trade). In Southeast Asia, orangutans are losing much of their habitat to palm oil plantations and other agricultural development.
From afar, there’s only so much detail we can provide—but those who are right there witnessing these issues can paint a very different picture. Our goal is to have them tell their stories, and help us to help our closest living relatives who are literally facing extinction.
We already have folks lined up for this exciting project: Dr. Cleve Hicks (former graduate student at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute just down the road) who is now working with apes in the Bili Forest in central Africa; Dr. Debra Durham who is currently in east Africa and has expertise in both captive and free-living issues (you might remember this article about PTSD in ex-biomedical lab chimps, including Negra); and Dr. Zarin Machanda who met JB and Diana at the Fauna Foundation years ago, and has worked with chimpanzees in east Africa. Stay tuned for these stories with great information coming very soon!
Here’s a photo of Negra, who now gets to have sunshine, friends, and choices after being stolen from Africa and used in biomedical research for decades. Let’s raise awareness about others like Negra still in labs, and for her relatives in Africa that need our help. Share this video and subscribe to the blog if you haven’t already, so you’ll be sure to get notified of the upcoming guest blogger posts!
Next weekend vegan bloggers nationwide are gathering in Portland, OR for Vida Vegan Con, arguably one of the coolest conferences out there. This year the vegan blogging conference has selected Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest to receive the proceeds from their silent auction event!
The silent auction, held at Saver Locomotive in Portland on Saturday, May 25th at 7:00pm, is not just a silent auction, it’s a “Galarama” that includes the So Delicious Diary Free Ice Cream Sundae Spectacular! Have you ever been to a Galarama or a Sundae Spectacular? I haven’t either! But J.B. and I will be there next Saturday to experience this for the first time.
The event is open to the public, so come see us, get your dairy free ice cream taste buds ready, and bid on some cool stuff to benefit the chimpanzees you love. If you’re not in Portland, please share this with your Portland friends – you’ll be doing them and the sanctuary a favor. Thank you Vida Vegan Con!
Thanks to Jackie Heinricher of Provitro Biosciences, the chimps have had the pleasure of having bamboo in the greenhouse. Jody has especially appreciated nesting in it. This morning, J.B. planted a couple more really tall plants, and Jody did not hesitate to take advantage of such valuable nesting material. She seemed pretty happy! Katelyn and I were commenting that it was interesting she chose the bamboo over her usual blankets, but Jody is an expert nest-builder and will use all sort of things like paper and straw in addition to blankets.
While Jody was happily building her wonderful nest, Missy decided to interrupt her and try to engage her in play. Missy is able to bring the playful side out in just about anybody, even the generally less playful Jody. She entertained Missy’s need for playing for a little while, and then returned to building the perfect nest. Wait for the end of the video—you’ll see just how content and comfy she looks.
Thanks again Provitro Biosciences!
We all know that Missy is a bundle of energy. She’s got one speed when she’s on Young’s Hill: FAST. She brings a smile to our faces every time she darts back and forth and up and down the hill, because she’s able to exert her energy in a space larger than she ever would have even imagined of in the lab. It’s so hard to try and think of how she was able to contain that energy in the confined space she had for decades. Now, she’s able to run as fast as she can, climb every structure and post, do her acrobatics on the fire hoses, and if she wants, to sit still. Missy is a very great example of how the chimps now have choices.
Mother’s Day at CSNW is always bittersweet (see J.B.’s fantastic blog post on this topic here). In addition to honoring motherhood, we celebrate Jody’s birthday on this holiday in tribute to the nine babies she had during her time in laboratories. Unfortunately, Jody (like most lab chimp moms) wasn’t allowed to raise her babies; they were taken from her immediately after birth and put into research themselves. Had Jody been a wild chimpanzee, she would have been inseparable from her children for their first five years of life. While we can’t make up for what Jody has endured in her past, we can and do celebrate her today.
Since Jody is all about comfort, her birthday parties usually include mountains of fluffy blankets and fresh straw to nest with.
Jody also loves to eat flowers, so Debbie and volunteer caregiver Stephanie brought lilacs from their gardens.
Jody spent about twenty minutes lying on her back in this nest and holding these lilacs over her head, plucking flowers with her lips like they were grapes.
The rest of the CSNW mamas enjoyed the day, too. Annie loved the lilacs.
Missy’s day was all about adventure, as most of her days are.
Foxie spent the day with her Dora the Explorer and troll dolls.
And Negra enjoyed some quiet solitude.
Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, and happy 38th birthday to the best Jody we know.
Today is Jody’s 38th birthday. Around here, we celebrate the chimps’ birthdays just as we would our own – a day filled with gifts and activities centered around the birthday guy or gal. Throughout the day, Jody will make giant nests of blankets and straw, pick dandelions from Young’s Hill, and enjoy flowers brought by volunteers and staff. We hope it will be all that Jody could ask for and more. But Jody’s birthday is always bittersweet. Because we don’t know her actual date of birth, we celebrate Jody’s birthday on Mother’s Day as a tribute to the mother that she was and, sadly, could have been if she had been given the chance.
We know very little about Jody’s early years. We are told that she was born in 1975, though these dates are often guesses, and spent some time performing in a circus. Like all chimpanzees in entertainment, she eventually became too strong and willful to control, and at that point she was purchased by the Buckshire Corporation in Pennsylvania.
In the 1970′s and 1980′s, demand was high for chimpanzees in the biomedical research community. Chimpanzees were being used to test experimental hepatitis vaccines and other pharmaceuticals, and with the emergence of HIV/AIDS the demand grew even higher. Buckshire purchased chimpanzees from breeders, importers, and circuses and then leased those chimpanzees out to laboratories for profit.
Buckshire leased their chimps primarily to two laboratories: White Sands Research Center, which later became the infamous Coulston Foundation, in New Mexico, and the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates, otherwise known as LEMSIP, in New York. In 1981, Jody was shipped to White Sands to be used in hepatitis research and for breeding.
White Sands wasted no time with Jody. Within three days of her arrival, she was housed with a chimpanzee named Tom for breeding. She was routinely anesthetized, or “knocked down” in lab parlance, for physical exams and to be injected or provide blood samples for research. Her first knock down came on her 10th day at the lab. She was 6 years old. She was intubated, her blood was drawn, and she was given a new tattoo – “WSRC #37.”
Over the next year and a half, Jody was regularly transferred between cages. Sometimes she was with another female, sometimes by herself, but usually she was with a male for breeding purposes…Max, Mack, John, Magoo….all in an attempt to create the next generation of lab chimpanzees.
Finally, on August 6, 1982, lab technicians found that they had succeeded in impregnating Jody and she was transferred to the “P.G. Cage” by herself. The following January, Jody gave birth for the first time. The technician’s notes read:
1/4/83 – 4cc Ketaset IM. Delivered infant baby male – taken away to nursery…Baby – Male WSRC #66 OPY – appears healthy.
In the wild, chimpanzee mothers will nurse their babies for the first five years. Their bond is incredibly strong and during that time the entire world revolves around their child, just as it does for human mothers. But Jody never got to nurse her baby, or hold him, or carry him on her back, or teach him about the world. She was immediately knocked down and her baby was stolen. Six weeks after delivering and losing her first baby, Jody was put into a cage with a male named Rufus for breeding, and the cycle continued.
Jody would go on to have eight other babies and two miscarriages and endure at least 52 knockdowns at White Sands. The technician’s notes tell the same story over and over again, with chilling detachment. Jody delivers a baby, and then she is anesthetized with a chemical anesthetic called ketamine (a.k.a. Ketaset or Vetalar) so that the baby can be taken away. The “IM” in these notes stands for “intramuscular” – this is not like slipping something in her drink…she was being stabbed with syringes or shot with darts.
11/23/83 – 4cc Ketaset IM. Delivered healthy infant male #88…removed and taken to nursery
6/20/84 – Found approx. 2-month old fetus + placenta in cage this a.m.
4/26/85 – Delivered healthy looking baby at 10:30pm…3cc Ketaset IM. Not taking care of baby. Infant removed to nursery. Animal does not appear to be feeling well. Did not eat any fruit this date.
3/15/86 – Delivered healthy infant early a.m. this date. 3 1/2 cc Ketaset IM. Mother was leaving infant on the floor – infant removed + taken to nursery. Appears to be a healthy animal #142 Cliff, male.
5/20/87 – Delivered healthy male infant between 11:30 and 12:00 pm…5cc Ketaset IM. Infant male #162 Clay removed and taken to nursery, Mother leaving infant unattended.
4/26/88 - PATHOLOGIST’S NOTE: Bloody mass found in cage – test indicates spontaneous abortion due to acute, hemorrhagic placentitis
1/4/89 – Arrived for night checks at 10:15pm…found infant alive in cage no more than one hour old – mother not taking good care of infant. 4 1/2 cc Ketaset IM. Removed infant male #0187 – appeared healthy.
9/30/90 – Delivered healthy infant female approx. 4 to 6 a.m. this date. Mother not taking good care of infant- leaving infant on floor unattended. 4 1/2 cc Vetalar IM, infant removed to nursery.
1/14/92 – Delivered healthy male at approx. 2:50pm this date. Mother not taking good care of baby. Leaving baby on floor unattended. 4.5 cc Vetalar IM Infant removed at 4:05pm, taken to nursery. Drew milk out for baby.
2/19/93 – Delivered infant early a.m. this date. 0515 hrs found infant on cage floor.Infant very cold. Removed infant immediately to nursery, mother not caring for infant. Infant male #236 Taylor.
Nine babies and two miscarriages in ten years.
The notes repeatedly state that Jody was not taking proper care of her infants, and this was very likely true. Chimpanzees who were stolen from their own mothers shortly after birth and then forced to endure life in a laboratory cage cannot be expected to care for their children properly. And if her date of birth is correct, she was still a child herself when she became pregnant. But the labs also had multiple incentives to take the babies from their mothers right away. First, a hand-reared chimpanzee is often easier to “work with” than a chimpanzee raised by a protective mother. But more importantly, Jody’s purpose at White Sands was to create more chimpanzees. Had she been allowed to raise and nurse her children as mothers in the wild would do, she would only give birth once every five years. By taking her babies away, they could keep her constantly pregnant.
Jody had the potential to be a great mother. She is tender, sensitive, and caring, but also fiercely protective of herself and her family. She deserved to be raised by her own mother and to learn what it is like to be loved unconditionally, and she deserved the chance to show her own children the same love.
One of the difficult things about sanctuaries is that you can’t make everything right again. For Jody, that time has passed. But what we can do, what we must do, is honor Jody and all the mothers whose children were stolen by never allowing this to happen again, and to help Jody heal by making each day more interesting, more exciting, and more hopeful than the last.
J.B. is working on a post for tomorrow about Jody and her children. We celebrate Jody’s birthday on Mother’s Day because of the many babies she had during her decades before coming to the sanctuary, but she is not the only mom of the group. As far as we know, Jamie never gave birth to any children, but all of the other ladies at the sanctuary – Annie, Missy, Negra, Foxie, and Jody, had multiple children (as far as we know, Burrito was never a father).
Negra’s children bear a remarkable resemblance to her. Luckily her son Noah and daughter Angel are both living at the largest chimpanzee sanctuary in the world – Save the Chimps in Florida. Negra’s daughter Heidi, remains in limbo at the Alamogordo Primate Facility in New Mexico.
Here are a few photos from yesterday of Queen Negra and below those are photos of Noah and Angel:
Negra’s son Noah, who lives at Save the Chimps
Negra’s daughter Angel, who also lives at Save the Chimps in Florida
View hundreds of photos and read stories unique to each year within the three books produced by Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. The books are available individually or as a set in either hardcover or softcover. Get yours today!
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Out of the Box 2013 was a big success! $126,000 raised after expenses, with $45,000 going towards the mobile veterinary clinic! Thanks to all who attended, donated items, sponsored, volunteered, bid and gave online!!
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