As you probably know, the Cle Elum Seven love food. Most of their diet at the sanctuary consists of fresh fruits and vegetables, plus nuts and seeds and primate chow, but they also enjoy chewing and wadging on browse (I just looked this up – Merriam-Webster defines browse as, “tender shoots, twigs, and leaves of trees and shrubs used by animals for food.”)
I know we’ve defined wadging on the blog a few times before. Here’s one post that mentions it. Maybe some of you avid blog followers can find the other posts that talk about wadges and wadging – the Merriam-Webster definition, shockingly, doesn’t cover chimp wadging. Basically it’s when chimps gather up food, browse, or even paper or cardboard, put it between their lower lip and bottom teeth and suck the juices out. Sometimes they add a bit of water to the mix. If they are wadging a food like primate chow, they will eventually ingest it, but often they just spit out the wadge when they’ve finished getting the good stuff out.
J.B. recently bought some loose alfalfa and some condensed cubes of alfalfa, and the chimps have been enjoying both. Providing the chimps with browse is great because it’s not only potentially nutritious, but it also creates a time consuming activity.
Below are a series of photos of Missy in a window sill perch going down to get some more alfalfa and bringing it back up to her spot:
and here are a couple of photos of Jody from today chewing on some alfalfa cubes:
Are there any foods that you have given them that they just didn’t want any part of? Sort of like trying to give a child some broccoli?? 🙂
Each has their own preferences, but as a group they seem to reject mushrooms, most fresh herbs (cilantro, mint, etc), hot peppers, swiss chard (this is surprising because most like other leafy greens like kale). I know there are other things, but that’s what’s coming to mind at the moment.
Do they have a preference between the alfalfa?
Negra, Missy and Annie like both, but the cubes are more universally liked so far. Foxie really likes them, and I haven’t seen her with the loose stuff (except to push it around with her dolls).
Maybe this question has come up in the past, but I was wondering if wadging is instinctual? Wouldn’t the mother have taught them this technique during the first few years if they hadn’t bee taken from their mothers?
What to eat and/or wadge and where to find it have a learning component, but I would say the behavior of wadging is instinctual.
There are some great scenes of little Oscar in the Disneynature film Chimpanzee (http://disney.go.com/disneynature/chimpanzee/) wadging sacoglottis fruit and, later, leaves.
I clicked on the the link you gave Anne. I really enjoyed watcing the video’s and looking at the photo gallery. I loved the story of the orphan Oscar and how Freddy took him in and raised him. Very touching story. What a pleasure. Thank you for sharing the site.