Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for July 2008

Today’s Photos

by

Foxie has a love/hate relationship with dolls. Sometimes she seems scared of them, and she will attack them with a rapid series of karate chops to the torso (very impressive). But then she will carry them around for the rest of the day and even nest with them. Today, Foxie carried this troll doll around in her “pelvic pocket”, an area between the hip and the thigh where chimps like to hold objects.

Burrito can look so innocent sometimes. I took this photo two minutes after he ran through the group, hitting the girls indiscriminately (as far as I could tell) as he went. Negra was very upset. But minutes later, everything was quiet again. Such is life in the chimp world…      J.B.

 

Negra’s dinner

by

Tonight we served onion pancakes for dinner. Check out the video to hear Negra (and the others in the background) food grunt with delight!

Nest-making

by

Free living chimpanzees make nests high up in the trees using twigs, branches and leaves. Captive chimpanzees, even those who were born at labs, often make nests too. It’s a natural chimpanzee behavior. Negra and Jody both make massive nests out of piles and piles of blankets and sheets. They carefully arrange the blankets as I imagine their counterparts in Africa carefully arrange their twigs and leaves.

I love taking apart the nests in the morning when we clean.  Sometimes I feel like an archaeologist, carefully unveiling layer upon layer. Not only do they use blankets and sheets, but they also stash other treasures in their nests. Today, one of the nests I came across included a shoe, a belt, a cup, a paintbrush, a scrub-brush, and three sheets:

While we can’t give them forests and trees, it’s great to know that we’re giving them what they need to express natural chimpanzee behaviors, even if that means scrub brushes and belts! -Sarah