Date of birth: 1974, celebrated on July 4th.
Aka: Yokie Pokie, Little Man, Pokie Man, The Pokester

Personality: Emotional, explosive, exuberant, high strung, elusive, impulsive, quick, agile, vicious,  fiery, demanding, provocative, passionate, relentless, hotheaded, fussy, loyal, funny, curious, unpredictable, and incredibly perceptive – Yoko is an amazing guy to know.

With Yoko, there is an incredible amount of personality packed into a small 80 pound body. From one extreme to the other, everything he is can be contradicted by something else that he is.  He is a complete and very diverse package.  You never ever know what you will get with this fellow, like a box of chocolates.  Yoko can be a tyrant one moment and then be a sweet, playful and loving friend the next. The other chimps who live with him  must always be ready for the many moods of Yoko.

Yoko has been betrayed and is not fond of anyone who treats him in a condescending way. He can be very aggressive towards anyone he considers a threat.  He has a lot going on inside and it is easy to see that he is often not comfortable in his own skin. He gets anxious and seems to need to constantly be doing things.  He needs a lot of space and a lot of choices. He knows what he wants and will find a way to get you to understand and work to please him. He and Tom lived in the same room for a long time and they both have this trait. It is very helpful when you are trying to make life better for someone and they know exactly what they want.

When Yoko is agitated, which is often, he looks for trouble. Once he finds it, he fights or expresses himself and then appears anxious to resolve the fight and relax. He never hides how he feels. You can never really change his mind once he has something in it -- he just does what he wants. He doesn’t care who is in his way, or what the consequences will be for him, or anyone else. His explosive side is hard to watch, since it gets him into trouble and leaves him stressed.  He very often has a whole group of chimpanzees running after him screaming and very angry.

A lot of what he does seems to be just to get a reaction.

But a whole lot of it is really to get things going. He has ample reason for his unpredictable personality -- years of absolutely horrifying experiences. For this reason, he can never be judged or criticized for his behavior.  Rather, he must simply be accepted and loved for who he is unconditionally.

In truth, he is quite strong emotionally considering all he endured. He does not have to be nice nor should he be expected to forgive humans. His commitment to his chimpanzee family is sincere. He is someone who is feared, but also loved. He has an amazing sense of humor with his friends, but you must like being bopped on the head because this is what a fun time with Yoko might look like.

He adores being pulled around by his feet and Binky loves to oblige. It is pretty funny to watch. Yoko is a very small adult male and Binky is a very big teenager. Watching the silly antics they come up with is a blast.

Yoko gets very attached to certain friends and will try to never let them out of his sight. It can be very difficult for the one he is attached too, since you can never shake him. His way of keeping someone with him is to be aggressive. He does not always act kindly to get what he wants and it is stressful for those he is attached to in any particular week.

Yoko is jealous and quite passionate and does not want to share his special friends, like Petra. If Petra decides she wants to be with someone else, Yoko will react by scaring off the other individual. He has managed to find a peaceful relationship with Binky and Petra together, but that is really one of the only groups that works for Yoko for any length of time.

One of the only residents to take Yoko on, and not let up, is Sue Ellen. She will never take his teasing or antics. She never backs down, and because of this, he gets into a lot of trouble. Everyone comes to Sue Ellen’s defense.

Yoko spent the first years at Fauna ignoring most of the humans. He would never look us in the eye, nor approach us at the bars, nor have any desire to do anything for us, like take his medication. To this day, this is a challenge since Yoko has a strong will and is determined to not give anyone what they want. He will only give what he decides he wants to give. This is perfectly fine. He can be who he is. It is really only challenging when he is sick and needs medication, or if we really need him to come to a new area or change places.

We all respect Yoko’s strong will. He is aloof and needs to believe in you and trust you before he will be a part of your life. It took years to reach into the heart of this Little Man. It is all about trust. He needs to know your intentions, know you would never trick him, and that you don’t expect him to do something just because you want him to. He needs to know there is a purpose and not just a command. Then he will look at you, understand your request, decide if you are worth it, and then once he thinks you are, he might just do it, or ignore you again -- leaving you with the knowledge that you simply do not matterl. Our funny Little Man.

Social Status: Feared, a bit of a tyrant, doesn’t seem comfortable in his position. His group situations must change regularly. Extremely possessive of the girls.

Favorite Activities: Being with Petra is his most favorite thing in the world. He is madly, passionately and wildly in love with Petra. There is probably nothing else that he loves more than being with her, and maybe being with Binky.
 
He loves to play with Binky, serious hard backslapping play. He is quite funny. Even though he is very small, he can jump right over Binky. He plays a leap frog game with him, leaving Binky laughing while trying to catch the little guy.

Yoko does not play with toys or bother with much. He likes to be near those he loves and groom ---though he grooms rather excessively and, unfortunately, leaves anyone who lives with him rather hairless in patches. If he is not pulling someone’s hair out, he pulls his own. This is something that occupies a lot of his time, and something captivity has done to him. When he has a lot of other things to do, he does not bother with this. For example, when he is on the islands, he is always busy doing something,  even just enjoying the fresh air, and does not obsessively groom.

He also loves to be in the skywalk, a great place from where he can see all that is going on. The skywalk looks over the farm, the chimp house, and the pond. It has trees growing underneath and over it, allowing easy access to the branches of fresh leaves of willow and fruit trees. Yoko loves to pull these branches off and eat the leaves, laying on his back in his classic pose with his feet up in the air.

Yoko, just like Binky is always up for an adventure. The three of them, Binky, Petra and Yoko, hang out together and look for things to do, or things to get into. This threesome, groom together, play together, get into mischief and eat together.

Yoko is very fond of nest making. He loves a nice big comfortable bed, and often has a huge collection of blankets and sheets -- sometimes up to 18 in one nest including those he steals from the others. He loves to have fresh sheets after breakfast for his morning nap and at night. He gets a little testy about taking his blankets, like Sue Ellen. He will try to scratch our fingers when we pass the sheets through the spaces we have. You must be quick and not talk at all, just let him take all that he wants and leave him alone afterward.

Yoko’s beds always have a stash of food in them. Under each layer of blanket or sheet are all sorts of goodies saved up from the day. He prepares for the future, keeping juice boxes, applesauce, fruit and night packages hidden under the blankets. He and Tom are the only residents of Fauna that have so many things tucked in their beds at night. When we fluff up his bed for the next day, we always try to leave his goodies where we found them.

If Yoko is having a really good day, he will play chase with the humans. He likes to be poked and turns his back and puts his feet up for us to gently poke through the bars. It is a game he invented and we all know how to play it. He finds it very funny.

Favorite Foods: Like a lot of the folks that had a life in entertainment or with humans, Yoko loves human food. He was in the circus in Missouri and he was familiar with raw eggs, pizza and foods like that.

Of course, he eats his fruit and vegetables, but party foods are what seem to excite him the most. He loves warm tea with muffins; bread is a huge favorite; and raw eggs which we get from the chickens we have rescued when available. If he sees someone with a coffee from Starbucks, Duncan Donuts or anywhere like that he gets very excited. He loves to get the bag with the little milks, the stir stick, the sugar packet and a little bit of coffee.    

When Yoko sees things he likes to eat, he cannot contain himself. He tries to grab everything he can, filling his arms with bundles of goodies. Then he carries his stash off to a safe place to eat. No one has ever challenged him concerning food, so he gets first choice. Often he tries to take so much in his arms that he loses most of the stuff on the way. Now we offer him bags with his goodies, so he can safely carry his food to a good location, and sit and take his time eating.

Yoko always flips through the choices we give him, pushing away anything he does not want at that moment. He sorts through the trolley and looks for his favorites, like lettuce and grapes. If what he wants is not there, he pushes the trolley to us, again and again, until he gets just what he is looking for. Trying to guess what he is in the mood for is a challenge, but once he gets what he wants, he is relieved that we finally figured it out.   

Then, he will start to hide his food in his bed. So we usually need to give him more, since he is saving the good stuff for later.

It must be a comfort for him to know there will always be food. One of the stresses of  captivity and being at someone’s mercy, is not knowing if or when food will come or if it will be something you like or have to eat because you are hungry.

We don’t want any of our chimps to feel that uncertainty and fear ever again. And Yoko, with all his fussy food desires, is no exception. We will always try to make eating a comforting and enjoyable part of his day.