Pan bloglodytes: The official blog of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute

If you know someone who works or has worked at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, you may have heard the term “chimp care” before. This title is given to someone who has gone through extensive training to directly care for and interact with the chimpanzees who live at CHCI.

Our first priority at CHCI is the health and safety of the chimpanzee family. A human who is interested in participating in the care giving for this family has to be able to provide safe care and show commitment and dedication to the program and – more importantly – to the chimpanzees.

Everyone who works at CHCI has a great deal of commitment to the family, but individuals have different levels of training. Someone starting out as an intern in the back is first trained how to be a “clean and berm” person – someone who spends about 4 hours a week cleaning, taking notes on berm and performing miscellaneous tasks around the building like meal preparation and laundry. CHCI depends on the clean and berm individuals so much – without them we would be lost. Cleaners help make sure that the chimpanzees are given a clean and safe home everyday, and berm observers ensure the chimpanzees’ safety when they are in their outdoor enclosure. Clean and berm interns contribute a great deal of time and energy to all of the research that goes on at CHCI (helping code videos, entering sign logs, etc.)

But what are the other levels of training? Well, an ambitious clean and berm intern who is so inclined can start taking “sign reliability” tests for each of the chimpanzees. These are videos assembled by the technicians that are clips of the chimpanzees signing. To pass these tests (or rather, to be reliable) requires a score of 85 percent or higher – which can be pretty difficult at times. After a while, you learn that the chimpanzees all have unique accents to their signing, and they all have their own pace that they sign at. The tests are just a means of making sure all the caregivers are able to correctly identify the signs when conversing with the chimpanzees. Someone who has finished sign reliability may receive an invitation to begin chimp care training, although it is not guaranteed. Obviously, it’s important that the chimpanzees respond well to the person being considered. The person also must commit to at least 18 months and show a lot of hard work and dedication to caring for the chimpanzees. At that point, someone might be invited to chimp care training.

The training is different for everyone – but for all it is a rigorous process that prepares the interns for eventually interacting with the chimpanzees alone. On average (although, as stated before, it’s different for everyone) training takes about 4-6 months. The training experience has several different stages, which help transition the caregivers into a position where they can make safe and flexible decisions on their own.

The first stage is strictly observational. For three meals, a new chimp care trainee watches a trainer, who is always a hydraulic operator (a chimpanzee caregiver with even more training and responsibilities) to see how the meal is served. The trainer shows the trainee how to serve different aspects of the meal, talks about the basic routine of every meal, and instructs on the importance of safety. No one at CHCI ever enters an enclosure, and we never stick our fingers through the fencing, but we can still have very rich and direct interactions. The trainer guides the trainee on how to do that safely. The next stage is assisting, and this is when the trainee will help the trainer on serving and interactions. Everything is done in way that our fingers never penetrate the caging and our feet never step into what we call a “red zone,” which is simply a visual reminder of how far the chimpanzees can reach out of certain areas under the fencing. A trainee who has assisted several times and is ready for the next step gets moved to the stage where the trainer observes them. This stage is pretty strange for the trainee because up until this point, an experienced trainer has been by stuck to their side like glue and now the trainer will sit back and just watch. During the observed stage the trainer is there to answer any questions and help with any high arousal meals or new interactions.

Finally, when the trainee is ready, they get moved to serving alone – but not completely at first. The trainer will sit in the kitchen, remaining close by if the server has any questions but not directly observing the server at all times as was previously done. After a few weeks at this stage, the server can be moved to having the trainer in the building – which means that the trainer can be anywhere in the building, not necessarily in the kitchen. It also means that the trainee can enter the human cages for interactions without being accompanied by a trainer. I can relay from a recent personal experience – it’s very weird! Once individuals have been moved to this stage, they start signing up for their weekend shifts and can finally complete their training.

A fully trained chimp care person still has all the responsibilities of a clean and berm person, but in addition they directly care for, interact with, and serve meals for the three amazing and unique chimpanzees living at CHCI. Each meal the chimpanzees are first offered CRACKERS or protein biscuits as their first course. The second course is the main meal – which is fruit-based for breakfast, protein-based for lunch, and carbohydrate-based for dinner. Crackers are small, and can be served either through the caging or underneath the caging. The chimpanzees have prehensile lips, meaning that they can grab things through their caging with just their lips, and this way the servers never put their hands through the caging. Vitamins are also served this way (or underneath the caging to the chimpanzees’ hand if that is what they prefer). Fruit smoothies, which are a breakfast item, are served in a cup that has a pouring lip, and the server will pour the smoothie into the chimpanzee’s mouth at the speed each family member desires. Fresh fruit is served to their mouths through the caging or to their hands underneath the caging. Lunch and dinner are usually served in bowls or on plates, and the chimpanzees are given spoons to eat with if they want. Lunch is a bean-based blended soup and sometimes meat, accompanied by a vegetable of the chimpanzees’ request. Bowls are passed to the chimpanzees below the caging, in a manner that the server doesn’t allow their hands to cross the red zone. Dinner is always different, and is usually served in bowls or sometimes in plates depending on what the meal might be. Dinner is also a time for fiber, which can be given in tablet form, Popsicle form, or mixed in a sport drink (the latter is a huge favorite!). Blankets always follow the meal as well as some nighttime enrichment. Sometimes the chimpanzees may ask for TOOTHBRUSH or GUM which can also be offered the same way as fruit or vegetable through the caging.

Interactions are a time for several different enriching games, conversations, and imagination. Chase is a big hit with the boys, and involves lots of stomping, slapping, and play faces. Tug-o-war can be played with a hose (the strong chimpanzees give us weak humans a little break) through the caging, and putting a mask on to entertain the chimpanzees is another popular game. Tatu will often ask for SMELL and she almost always correctly identifies what we have just eaten based on the smell of our breaths. Loulis loves to play tickle, where he puts his fingers out and tickles the back of our hands (our fingers form a fist and never penetrate the cage) or our shoes. Dar loves to be groomed by pushing his back against the caging so that his hair sticks out a bit and then we can brush him with a hair brush or backscratcher. We can also flip through magazines and talk about the pictures, we can make paintings together, and the list goes on.

Every human who works and volunteers at CHCI – be it a clean and berm person, chimp care person, hydraulic operator, tech, liaison, or docent – show a huge amount of dedication and caring for this family of primates. I thank you all so much for everything you do for this family! And I encourage others to come to Ellensburg and join our program – apprentices, interns, graduate students, or docents – and learn how unique this family is.

Share This

On Friday February 22, 2008 Mary Lee Jensvold, Deborah and Roger Fouts went to Olympia, Washington, our beautiful state capitol where the State Legislature would vote on a resolution to honor Washoe and recognize the work of the Fouts. Joining us was CWU’s new provost, Dr. Wayne Quirk, and the new Interim Dean of the College of the Sciences, Dr. Martha Kurtz as well as Laurie Pond, one of the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) first volunteers. Ann Anderson, CWU’s Director of Governmental Affairs guided us through the day accompanied by Jake Stillwell, Washington State Student Lobbyist representing CWU and Marshall Shefler, another CWU student serving as a Government Relations Intern.

The capitol building is beautiful. The dome is reminiscent of our nation’s capitol and the interior is all marble. Right inside the entrance and at the bottom of a grand staircase leading to the rotunda was a display including a beautiful photograph of Washoe and a description of the project and the work of the Fouts and CHCI. To set the perfect tone there was a string orchestra from the Walla Walla Valley Academy playing music that was acoustically perfect. Sitting along the steps schoolchildren ate their lunches and looked at the display. Even on this day, Washoe continued to carry her message of compassion and respect for our fellow beings.

As we absorbed all of this, the Fouts were greeted by legislators, Rep. Judy Warnick, Rep. Janea Holmquist, Rep. Bill Hinkle, and Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson. We then proceeded up to the observation gallery above the floor from where the representatives govern our state. The resolution, which was sponsored by Rep. Judy Warnick with support from Bill Hinkle, honoring Washoe was read. Then Rep. Warnick and Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson each read tributes supporting the Washoe resolution. The house then unanimously passed the resolution. The Fouts were honored with warm applause from the Representatives. It was heartwarming to know that the Fouts’ decades of dedication to the chimpanzees, to Central Washington University, and its students were being recognized. The House Speaker and CWU alumni, Jeff Morris, described his experience as a freshman in 1982 taking classes in the psychology building. That building was the chimpanzees’ home from 1980-1993 and classrooms were above and below the chimpanzees’ floor. Classes in adjacent floors, like Speaker Morris’, paused when the sounds of the chimpanzees were louder than the lecturer. Speaker Morris described his experience, which brought smiles to the faces of the legislatures.

The Fouts’ were touched when Rep. Helen Sommers left the floor of the House of Representative to warmly greet them. Later in the afternoon the Fouts had opportunity to visit with Senator Marilyn Rasmussen. She was one of the key sponsors of the budget request in 1990 that secured the funds to build the CHCI building that was completed in 1992. Both Rep. Sommers and Senator Rasmussen were long time friends who were glad to see the Fouts in Olympia again. It was a heartfelt day and we were honored to be a part of it. We all miss Washoe dearly, but it gives us comfort to know she’s free and it humbles our soul to know even in death she is teaching us about our place in nature.

From left to right: Rep. Jenea Holmquist, Roger Fouts, Rep. Judy Warnick, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, Rep. Bill Hinkle, Deborah Fouts

From left to right: Roger Fouts, State Senator Marilyn Rasmussen, and Deborah Fouts.

From left to right: Jake Stillwell, Marshall Shefler, Ann Anderson, Roger Fouts, Marilyn Rasmussen, Deborah Fouts, Laurie Pond, Martha Kurtz, Mary Lee Jensvold, and Wayne Quirk

Share This

Editor’s Note: Every day at CHCI we put out a wide variety of enrichment items for the chimpanzees: clothing, sheets, drawing material, containers, toys, hoses, mirrors, brushes, and so on. Most days we have some sort of theme to the objects, which helps keep us from using the same objects in the same ways day after day. Other days we incorporate a forage or something else special into the general enrichment items, as well. Here are the themes from January 2008.

1. Tatu’s birthday

2. Tropical day

3. Back to school day

4. Horse and dinosaur day

5. General enrichment

6. General enrichment

7. Container day

8. General enrichment

9. Breakfast day

10. Seahawks day

11. Condiment (ketchup, mustard, etc.) handprints on the walls

12. General enrichment

13. General enrichment

14. Fairy tale day

15. Bird and feather day

16. Ant day (with scattered raisins as ants)

17. Insect day

18. Blue day

19. General enrichment

20. General enrichment

21. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

22. New movies day

23. Hanging laminates day

24. Mammal day

25. Jungle day

26. General enrichment

27. General enrichment

28. Ocean day (with Goldfish ® crackers)

29. All enrichment on the top wooden platform in the East Room

30. General enrichment

31. Press and seal forage day

Share This

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of blog entries about working at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute. Internships at CHCI begin with PRIM 220, a course on our philosophy and procedures of caregiving. The following piece was written by Lindsay, who was a PRIM 220 student in the fall, and continues working here as a volunteer. She tells us a little about herself, and the experience she had as a beginning intern. We will continue this series with accounts from other individuals at various levels of experience and training at CHCI.

Hello! My name is Lindsay and I am a junior here at CWU. I had the privilege of beginning to work at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute in September of 2007 through the PRIM 220 class that is offered every fall. This was a very big opportunity for me not only because I am majoring in Primate Behavior and Ecology but also because I have had a life long dream of working with animals, and it introduced me to some amazing beings; Washoe, Tatu, Dar, and Loulis, and also stories of Moja.

I came to college unsure of what I wanted to do with my life. Three days after moving into my dorm I saw the PBE major in the course catalogue and never looked back. The next week I went to my first Chimposium and from that day on I went to class with the goal of someday being able to work at CHCI. Although the thought of being given the opportunity gave me butterflies, and some personal doubts, it brought ten times more excitement.

I remember going into the new intern orientation, looking around and thinking to myself, “Alright, Lindsay, you got yourself here, now let’s see what you can do with it.” It was such an exciting feeling sitting in that room knowing that the chimps were right on the other side of the window. I met people that day that, little did I know, would become my confidants, my friends, and my mentors.

I also learned what I would have to do to pass the PRIM 220 class. We learned about the different tests we would be taking and that we would have to get an 85% on them in order to advance to the next. We were introduced to several books that we would be reading; those books would change my life. As the quarter progressed the best thing about those tests, nerve racking though they were, was that every time I took one I had a friend sitting next to me taking the same test who was just as nervous as I was.

The first day I went to work, my duty was to clean the West room. Never in my life would I have imagined being so ecstatic over being given the duty of “pooper scooper”! I was so close to the chimpanzees! I got to hear them, watch them, just plain be in awe of them. The longer that I worked at CHCI the more I looked forward to going to work. My mom now calls me every night to see if I have any new chimp stories. While I am not able right now to directly interact with the chimps, I still every day am amazed by something that I have seen or heard Tatu, Dar, and Loulis do.

During my second month at CHCI, Washoe passed away. This taught me so much about myself and the other humans there. They are a family, the people and the chimps. Washoe achieved so much more in her lifetime than many people I’ve known, and it was such a humbling experience to see all that she had done and all of the people who loved her. I along with all of the other PRIM 220 students had such an eye opening experience to how lucky we really were to be working there.

After college my dream is to own and run my own animal shelter, and I don’t think I would be able to accomplish this if I wouldn’t have had my experience at CHCI, which I will be continuing until I graduate. The first three months and the tasks I was asked to do in class have given me so much life experience. I’ve learned technical things about caring for other animals, but also emotional things. I know now that to be successful you must personally invest yourself in everything that you do. I would suggest that anyone who loves animals, loves fun, or loves the feeling of being in a place where a difference is being made, visit CHCI. Take the PRIM 220 class, and your eyes will be opened I promise. Read the books and you will be amazed at the things that you have yet to learn.

There was one quote in the book Next of Kin by Roger Fouts that I feel really sums up my experience at CHCI thus far. “It was Washoe who taught me that “human” is only an adjective that describes “being,” and that the essence of who I am is not my humanness but my beingness.”

Share This

[Editor’s note: This is the fourth is a series of e-mail updates from former CHCI graduate student, Maureen McCarthy. Maureen has spent the last several months in Uganda studying a small group of free-living chimpanzees in a threatened habitat. Today she says some goodbyes.]

Hello all,

Happy holidays! I must begin this much-belated update by paying tribute to a dear friend, Washoe, who passed away on October 30. I had the honor and privilege of spending a few years in her presence, and she has influenced my life in innumerable ways. This is the case for so many people I know. For those of you who don’t know much about Washoe and her family, please go to www.friendsofwashoe.org and read Next of Kin by Roger Fouts. I promise you’ll be glad you did!

Any explanation I give of Washoe’s life won’t do her any justice, but I want to share a dream I had one night shortly after I heard about her death. I was in the middle of a field here in Uganda, and I saw Washoe running toward Ruhara, one of the adult female chimps in the community I’ve been studying. Washoe and Ruhara breathy panted and greeted each other with an embrace. It was clear to me they were old friends who had just reunited. A moment later, the rest of Washoe’s chimpanzee family appeared in the field. They became piloerect and started pant hooting excitedly and looking toward the nearby forest edge. I couldn’t tell why they were so excited, so I moved away to get a better perspective and leave them to their excitement. Suddenly, dozens of chimpanzees emerged from the forest. Washoe and her group ran toward them, and all the chimps greeted each other. Then more and more chimpanzees emerged from the forest, and before I knew it there were hundreds of chimps in the field. I realized there were far more chimps in the little forest than I could have imagined, that chimps weren’t in nearly as much trouble as we thought. I felt a huge sense of relief and contentment. My simple, obvious interpretation is that the dream represents my wishes for chimps. Captive chimpanzees were free from captivity (and now Washoe is indeed free), and free-living chimpanzees were present in large numbers and doing fine.

In reality, chimpanzee populations throughout Africa are being decimated. In the days after Washoe’s passing, I continued to go to the forest and watch trees being cut down, watch the government come into the forest to shoot baboons because they are considered vermin by the local people, find snares just meters from the chimps as they pant hooted in the trees above. And despite all this, there are rays of hope. On November 25, Ruhara gave birth to a healthy little baby chimpanzee. The little Kasokwa chimp group increased in size from 13 to 14 individuals.

As if this wasn’t enough excitement, we heard and observed the chimpanzees hunt a black-and-white colobus monkey just a few days later. Although free-living chimpanzees are known to occasionally hunt, it is rarely observed by researchers. Jack and I were following the chimps as they traveled through the forest, but thought we had lost them. Just as we turned to head to a different area, certain that there was no sign of the chimps in the vicinity, the forest erupted into a chorus of pant hoots. We couldn’t see the chimps, so we sat down and listened as the pant hoots continued and then turned into frenzied screams. Next we heard the deep, throaty calls of a colobus monkey amidst the screaming. We suspected they were hunting, and the calls had moved 20 or 30 meters away, so we moved a little closer to see if we could get a glimpse of them. As we moved around a bit to try and get a better view, we cracked a few branches loudly enough to alert the chimps to our presence. They began alarm calling loudly, and the vocalizations turned toward our direction and got louder! That was our definite cue to back off and leave them to their hunting. We later heard from another researcher that the chimps in the nearby Budongo Forest seem to actively avoid being observed while they hunt. A few minutes later, the screams died down and we heard food grunting—evidence of a successful hunt. We again moved a little closer and saw the alpha male feeding on a colobus monkey. He shared the meat with one of the adult females and her two offspring. We observed these four individuals for about a half hour as they feasted. We knew other chimps were nearby, as evidenced by the sounds of food grunting, bone breaking, and food-induced flatulence, but we couldn’t see them. This time, however, none of the chimps objected to our presence. Although they clearly saw us, they were far too consumed with consuming their meat to care about being observed. It was a truly exhilarating experience to watch them share their monkey feast. This was our last official day of research in the forest, and a spectacular way to end it.

A week or so later, we did a night survey to look for amphibian species in the forest. Jack led some research to examine the amphibian species present, and nighttime is the best time to find and catch them. We did night surveys in China, but this was quite a different experience. The forest looks and feels like a completely different place at night, and we heard a chorus of unsettling and unidentifiable eerie sounds. For me, the highlight was seeing a potto, a nocturnal primate that is rarely observed, even by researchers who have studied nocturnal critters.

Since the formal research ended, we’ve been examining other forest fragments for the presence of chimps, and we’ve also had some time to travel and enjoy ourselves. We took Prossy, our cook/maid/dear friend, to Jinja, the city at the source of the Nile River. At our little hotel, Prossy climbed a flight of stairs for the first time in her life. We took her to the hotel roof (about 5 flights up) so she could get a nice view of Jinja. We all enjoyed Chinese food (Prossy even tried chopsticks), went shopping, and took a short boat ride to the source of the Nile. Actually, Prossy is terrified of water, and since we’d already tested her fear of heights, we decided to accept her refusal to take the boat ride. We went without her instead and left her to enjoy herself with a soda on a patio fixed firmly on dry land.

We’ve spent the past few days in Kampala. A couple of those were spent with our field assistant, Joseph. We went out to dinner for Korean food with him and feasted from an amount of food that was more appropriate for 8 rather than 3 people. This was the first time we’ve seen Joseph say, “I’m so full. I cannot eat any more.” The man will eat anything and in huge quantities, so this was quite an accomplishment for us.

When we haven’t been traveling, we’ve been staying with a lovely British man we met on one of our first days in Uganda. He works in the area near the forest and our village, and has been traveling all over the world and throughout Africa for almost 30 years. He’s hospitable and charismatic and begins nearly every story with, “Once when I was in Pakistan…” or “Once when I was in Mozambique…”

So that about sums it up. I fly out today and will be back in the States this Wednesday. I’m so sad to leave but looking forward to seeing or talking to many of you very soon. Thank you for reading my updates and keeping in touch!

Best wishes,

Maureen

Share This