Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for February 2013

Browsing

by

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:

missy sit window sill

missy swing down

missy walk annie sit

missy get alfalfa

missy turn, alfalfa in mouth

missy swing alfalfa in mouth

missy climb alfalfa in mouth

missy chew alfalfa

missy enjoy alfalfa in window sill

 

and here are a couple of photos of Jody from today chewing on some alfalfa cubes:

Jojdy chew alfalfa cube

jody chew alfalfa cubes close up

Getting some fresh air

by

Normally after cleaning the playroom, we put out a small forage of nuts, seeds, dried fruit or some combination before letting the chimps back in there. They most certainly know our routine so as we start to wrap things up in there, the chimps start checking in with us to see what the forage is going to be. They watch us scatter what ever it is and (depending on how exciting it is) they begin to food grunt (and hopefully food squeak) in anticipation. Today, no one was around as we scattered the forage – not even Burrito, who is always interested to see what the forage will be! We locked everything up and I opened the door for the chimps – nothing.

But as it turns out, the absence of chimps wasn’t because they just weren’t hungry or interested in the forage – it’s because all seven chimps were out on Young’s Hill! No one had even seemed to notice that I had opened the playroom back up for them. I walked outside to see what they were up to and Burrito and Jody were roaming the very top of the hill, Annie and Missy were wrestling on the shaky bridge, Jamie was walking around in the bamboo with a boot, Foxie was on top of one of the climbing structures playing with a pink-haired troll doll, and Negra was simply sitting by the log structure.

With it being as cold as it has been, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Negra just “hanging out” out there. She’s gone out a few times since the snow melted but not for very long. This morning, it was warm and sunny enough that she just sat down and took in some fresh air.

As J.B. mentioned the other day, we often can’t get photos of Negra on the hill because she “doesn’t deal with the paparazzi” as well as the others, but today, for what ever reason, she didn’t seem to mind one bit. She sat there for a good 15 minutes with me snapping photos. I guess all that fresh air and sunshine made dealing with “obnoxious” photographers trying to get a glimpse of the Queen worth it.

web Negra profile sit on YH IMG_3164

web Negra look down driveway sit on YH IMG_3167

Looking down the driveway:
web Negra look down driveway sit on YH IMG_3166

web Negra look towards valley sit on YH IMG_3168

web Negra arms crossed look at camera sit on YH IMG_3170

Take Action Tuesday: Chimps in more commercials

by

Thankfully, Sunday’s SuperBowl game didn’t have any surprise chimp commercials—let’s hope CareerBuilder continues to listen to advocates and steer clear of any such thing. Even if they do choose to do another chimp commercial in the future (because they haven’t yet pledged otherwise) hopefully they can follow Adobe’s example and use CGI instead of a real chimpanzee actor.

More and more bigger companies are pulling commercials and making pledges to no longer work with apes, like Great Clips a few weeks ago. Despite this progress for chimps in the entertainment industry, ads are still popping up done by smaller, more local companies that aren’t using one of the top ten advertising agencies (all of which have pledged to never work with apes).

Recently our attention was brought to Ticket Clinic, who made several spots featuring a chimpanzee. The commercial was produced by Pirates for Parties—a facility that leases baby chimps out for media productions or parties. They claim the pictures of chimpanzees bearing all their teeth are “happy” and are “thrilled to come to entertain at a party or corporate event, or act in your commercial, movie, or television show.” We know that this is not how chimpanzees smile, but rather it is a facial expression that indicates fear (and it actually is called a “fear grimace”). Happy chimpanzees droop their bottom lip and cover their top teeth.

Screenshot of The Ticket Clinic's TV spot featuring a baby chimpanzee
Screenshot of The Ticket Clinic’s TV spot featuring a baby chimpanzee

Sadly, another even more recent commercial produced for a smaller business is this one for Super Home Surplus. Again, just like in the Ticket Clinic commercial, you can see the chimp fear grimacing and doing other unnatural or trained behaviors, like flailing around or moving their lips as if they were talking. If you haven’t already seen it, check out this video about apes in entertainment. About a minute and a half in, you’ll see some clips demonstrating how trainers intimidate their chimpanzee actors.

Let Ticket Clinic and Super Home Surplus know it isn’t OK to use chimps this way. If we can get companies to understand the truth and stop making productions featuring chimpanzees, there will be no demand and places like Pirates for Parties will have no reason to continue breeding chimps. You can use the following sample letter to send to Ticket Clinic at [email protected] and another to Super Home Surplus at [email protected]

Sample Letter:

I was shocked and disappointed to hear about your commercial that features a young chimpanzee. You should know that chimpanzees used in entertainment are torn away from their mothers as infants, often repeatedly beaten during training, and then discarded when they become too strong to be managed.

Using a chimpanzee for a cheap laugh sends the message that these amazing beings are simply props. Surely you are aware that chimpanzees are endangered species in critical need of protection? You are exploiting chimpanzees for your own profits and this is an unacceptable business practice.

Join other companies like Great Clips, Dodge, Pfizer, and Capitol One and please make the compassionate decision to remove the chimpanzee from your commercial. I urge you to consider to never exploit great apes for entertainment purposes again. Thank you for your consideration of my comments on this urgent matter.

If you send an email to either The Ticket Clinic or Super Home Surplus, please BCC [email protected] for tracking purposes. Thank you!

Exercise

by

Now that the snow has melted and the sun has returned, the chimpanzees have been really enjoying being outside on Young’s Hill.  This morning we witnessed an impressive burst of activity.  I can imagine how good it must feel to them to be able to stretch their legs.