Caring for chimpanzees during an eclipse was something new for us. We’ve been discussing thoughts and plans with our fellow sanctuary colleagues and veterinarians for awhile and understandably, there isn’t a lot of precedence for chimpanzee care (or other animal care) during such events. Though we did come across this interesting report from 1986 in the American Journal of Primatology.
We suspected the chimps probably wouldn’t look directly at the sun, but we decided to err on the side of caution and threw an exciting breakfast forage in the playroom to keep the chimps happy and active during the peak of the eclipse.
While the chimps were enjoying their tropical fruit brunch forage, we humans donned our eclipse shades and headed outside to watch with Ellie. It was a partial eclipse in our area, but incredible to experience nonetheless. Our local wild-ish elk friend, Ellie, couldn’t figure out what we were doing, but seemed happy to join the herd.
The “other” sun, Elizabeth:
J.B. has been waiting his whole life for this moment:
Ellie gave zero indication that anything was occurring other than the humans being odd. The chimps were aware that their routine was slightly different and the humans were running around trying to get things done faster than usual, but outside of that they didn’t appear to notice much. However, Jody and Foxie spent some time looking out the front rooms doors at the increasing shadows and the human shenanigans.
Foxie:
Jamie, as usual, had important matters to attend to:
We hope you all had an opportunity to enjoy this amazing event!
