For lunch today, caregiver Lisa served the chimpanzees corn, cauliflower, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, and red onions.
Annie with a corn cob wadge (you can see that chimps don’t have the same hangups about “table manners” as we do):
Negra with a mouthful of cauliflower glancing out the window on her way to her favorite spot on the catwalk:
Jody:
Missy heading upstairs with her haul:
She settled in front of the window for a lunchtime view of the valley:
they use the food trays to carry their food? utensils at times?
It just depends on what foods we’re serving. For smaller foods, it’s often easier to use a paper tray, which we then fold lengthwise and serve to the chimpanzees through the caging. Otherwise, we just cut the food into pieces that will easily fit through the caging (we quarter apples, for instance) and serve it directly to the chimps’ mouths or hands.
As for utensils, the chimps’ diet consists primarily of fresh produce, so no utensils needed. Once in awhile we’ll make something like spaghetti, though, and we have offered spoons in the past. Most of the chimps prefer to use their fingers, though. 🙂
Annie, I’m with you! Corn is my favorite! 😉
Is the gang celebrating the Olympics? I just saw that Freestyle Skier Patrick Deneen is from Cle Elum, plain as day on NBC Sports coverage. 😀
Great idea! Maybe we’ll do a sports theme day soon.
Looks like a lovely day and a yummy lunch. Love the photos!
I have a few questions on the topic of “wage”. I clicked on the link at top to read more about wage and I am curious, is the point to stash it and suck on it until it gets hard, then chew it? Do they discard it after the moisture leaves it? The primate chow in Annie’s mouth when she “checks on it” looks solid. How long do the chimps keep the wage in their lower lip?
And I have a question (in the same link) about Annie ‘adding water’ to her wage. Is that a special water spigot on the wall where she is drinking? Never thought about quenching their thirst.
Hi Kathleen – It depends on what the material is. With something like chow, the chimps will wadge it for awhile and eventually end of eating the mush. 😉 But with corn cob or plant material, for instance, they wadge the item for awhile to suck out all the juices, and then spit out the remaining dried up ball.
And yes, that’s a water spigot on the wall. There are several of those water spigots throughout the chimp house.
Thank you Elizabeth for your time to reply! Life as a chimp is so fascinating. And I never noticed those water spigots. How convenient!
They are so very content – thanks to all of you!
Could the human desire to chew gum be a survival of the chimpanzee wadge