Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for March 2011

Wine grape vines for the chimps

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It’s that time of year again – right around the time of our wine tasting event, the chimpanzees get to enjoy the bounty from Washington State wine growing too. Thanks to Phil Cline at NHV for letting us pick up a truckload of vine trimmings for the chimps! So far they don’t seem to have a favorite varietal, but just give them time.

I searched for a video to provide a comparison of Jody’s nesting behavior to what chimpanzees do in the wild. Here are a couple, in case you are interested: Female chimpanzee making nest from tree leaves at Gombe Stream National Park and bonobo making a treetop nest. They weren’t easy to find becaues if you do a Google video search for “chimpanzee nesting” – most of the results are videos from Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest.

Sippin’ for the Seven photo montage

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Enjoy the photos from Sippin’ for the Seven by Ron Sullivan Photography in the photo montage below!

Also, if you attended or purchased a ticket for Sippin’ for the Seven and were unable to attend: Click here to take survey (if you haven’t already)

Chimps’ Choice!

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It’s been a while since we had a Chimps’ Choice item, and we have an awesome idea!

We love to challenge the chimps with puzzles. Not to cause stress, of course, but to keep them stimulated and enriched. Jamie loves nothing more than a project but she’s so smart that it is difficult to come up with a project for her that actually challenges her. Something that would take me an hour to figure out, Jamie masters in less than 5 minutes. The puzzles that Cari donated the other day are just perfect and we would love to have more. The website has a variety of puzzles, but not all of them will work for us, so I added the specific ones we think will be best to our Amazon Wishlist. They are the PVC Puzzle, the hanging sliding feeder, the Forage Raisin Ball, and the Discovery Food Ball. All of these puzzles have a chain attached to them and hang on the outside of the caging. They encourage tool use and creative problem solving skills, and I suspect they will be just the thing to keep Jamie and the others enriched and occupied for years to come.

***Update: The company that sells these puzzles, AbsolutePrimate.com, has a $75 minimum, so if you would like to participate, instead of ordering them through the website, please send us a donation and we will order them. Be sure to mention Chimps’ Choice or puzzles in the gift note section.

Jody

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Jody is a pretty serious chimpanzee. She seems to take everything she does very seriously, whether it’s greeting a caregiver, playing (somewhat reluctantly) with one of the other chimps, or kicking back in a nest. This is one of the things I find (simultaneously) most intimidating and most endearing about Jody. Check out Jody’s “serious face”:

Happy Birthday, Courtney

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Big happy birthday wishes to Courtney Taylor from Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Negra, Missy, Jody and Annie!

Courtney’s been following the sanctuary and the Cle Elum Seven since their arrival in 2008, and has “given” her birthday to the chimps three years in a row.

This year Courtney exceeded her goal and raised over $1,000 for the chimps through a Facebook Causes birthday wish, which made her one of the overall top fundriaisers for our Causes page on Facebook!

Find out how you can make a birthday wish for the chimps on Facebook by asking your friends to give a little to the sanctuary.

Thanks for being an inspiration, Courtney!

Burrito with pomegranates

More enhanced enrichment puzzles

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Thanks to volunteer Cari Parker, we have more enhanced enrichment puzzles. Cari’s friend Stephanie sponsored today in honor of Cari’s Birthday, so Cari sent us a box of enrichment for the occasion. Included in the box of goodies were some PVC pipe puzzles. There is a photo with an explanation in the video below.

Keeping the chimps (especially super smart Jamie) enriched is a challenge. We are always trying to come up with new puzzle ideas- and these are great! (Thanks, Cari!) If you ever have any ideas you would like to share, please email me at [email protected]