Today’s blog is centered around a short video of chimpanzees extracting food from enrichment puzzles.
All of the chimps are given enrichment activities and items every day, but we’re giving additional enrichment to Willy B to keep him entertained while in recovery. So far, his favorite activity has been to tease grapes, walnuts, and other coveted snacks out of the transparent puzzle feeders. These specialized devices were purchased by our supporters from a helpful company, WildlifeToyBox.com. We’re always in need of more durable enrichment items, so Chad has set up a wish list on their site. You can see this special list by clicking here.
You also visit our Wish List page to learn more about our needs or go directly to the Amazon Wish List to see which other items we currently need for the chimpanzees (and cattle)!
Thank you all for your continued support of the sanctuary!
Linda C says
Note taken: Dora with a stick allows for a smaller radius than Jamie with a stick!
That was a fun puzzle for the handsome Willy B. But man, that nose injury is something!
Thanks, Anthony
Anthony says
If you think it looks bad now…
I’m not going to be unnecessarily graphic, but Dr. Erin really worked some veterinary magic last week!
Cindy says
They never cease to amaze me. Awesome people. Ty guys
Anthony says
Thank you, Cindy!
Tobin says
How much smarter are chimpanzees than lower primates (and forms of life) such as myself? It wasn’t until about two-thirds of the way into the video that I realized that if, somehow, Willy could get that wooden block to fall through to the lower level, he could get ahold of the walnuts. Nevertheless, he persevered!
E Signora Dora…ah…che bellisima!
Anthony says
It took him a long time to get the wooden block through that gap but then he received a handful of nuts all at once! We’ve had to make the puzzles progressively harder for him since he has so much free time in his recovery pad.
Marcie says
Oh Willy B that nose injury, ouch. Get better soon. Dora as always cute and tiny.
Anthony says
Thanks, Marcie!
CeeCee says
Poor Willy B. I hope it looks worse than it feels at this point.
That is a great puzzle, you can see how hard he’s workin’ it. Do you think he will be going back with his friends soon ?
Thank you for caring, and taking such wonderful care of him.:revolving_hearts:
Kathleen says
Drat that big wooden dice! grrrrrr!!!
I some ways watching Willy B reminded me of playing pinball. 🙂 I am amazed Willy B managed to displace the dice. That puzzle takes great patience, determination, skill and smarts. Very cool observing both puzzles from that angle. Dora, so darn cute.
Thank you Dr. Erin for preserving one the most handsome faces I’ve ever seen. Poor Willy B–Ouchie!!
HB says
Found answer to my question about what happened to nose..it took a domain search, google taking me to “Willy B in recovery room” which then needed a third click to “Thoughts from a Busy Day” To save others time, here’s the link https://chimpsnw.org/2022/09/thoughts-from-a-busy-day/
I’m a long time youtuber subscriber but if a previous video before today’s on Enrichment Puzzles covered the nose injury, I must have missed it. I do have a question, feel free to send URL or several URLs if there’s a detailed explanation on some other page. TWo part quesetion actually How does surgery happen, in terms of anesthesia, I assume the chimp has to be out cold before it’s safe for humans. I might try to guess that you first see if the chimp is ready to volunteer their back or some other area while still the metal bars are between you ,and then if nothing else works then you have darts like they use for elephants but lower dose obviously?
Or is some other set of steps and procedures?
Part (i) or first variant of questions is: what’s the procedure for surgeries that aren’t super urgent (super urgent means you need to get the surgery started in say 2 minutes).Part 2 question is:
(ii)What is surgery is very urgent, needs asap or chimp dies?Or two chimps in life threatening battle? My best guess for (ii) is you go to darts immediately, as the protocol on paper at least, whether you’ve needed it or not..but is there something else for (ii)? And when time is less urgent and you have an hour or hours, for item (i) what’s the procedure?
Been meaning to ask you this for years..finally made it here, curious seeing the nose injury near end of video posted Sept 22, 2022which I just watched now..the recent one about enrishment puzzles. Thanks. I’ve been vegan for almost 30 years by the way. I think human-nonhuman interactions are much better than decades ago but we have a long way to go and a lot to learn about their intelligence, and how to ideally interact with them. But the work you do is valuable not only for compassionate care, but also to navigate through that learning curve for humanity.
Linda C says
I can’t link the post for you, because it was, I believe, in December 2 or 3 yrs ago, but they have done more than one blog on what calls for anesthesia or not and how they go about it (you’ve answered your own question there-darting is the last resort). look up “another trip to the clinic for Burrito ” or maybe search archives by “Burrito”.
J.B. says
Thanks for the kind words and congratulation on 30 years!
You are correct that they have to be fully anesthetized before we remove them from the enclosure for veterinary intervention. Our preference is always to hand inject when possible. Many of the chimps have been trained, or in some cases have learned on their own, to present an arm or a leg against the caging so that we can administer the anesthetic. This is almost always to safest and least traumatic option. For those that don’t present, we may give them oral sedatives and then sneak and injection when they are near the caging. But in some cases, we have no choice but to dart.
It actually doesn’t make as much of a difference as it might seem how urgent the intervention is – the chimps generally present or they don’t. So our approach is usually the same, although we would go straight to the dart for a chimp in need of immediate help if they didn’t reliably present, because the oral sedatives can take 60-90 minutes to take effect. One thing to note is that the chimps have to be isolated prior to anesthetic induction, so we wouldn’t use anesthetics to intervene if two chimps were fighting, no matter how bad the fight was. In those cases, our priority would be to close a door in between them, possibly using a hose or other method of distraction to get them separated if possible. Unfortunately, serious fights can be difficult to break up, especially when the whole group is involved.
Here are a few posts that might help shed some more light on the challenges of anesthesia and veterinary intervention for captive chimps:
On anesthesia in general: https://chimpsnw.org/2022/01/first-do-no-harm/
On injection training: https://chimpsnw.org/2022/09/training/
And here you can find write ups on many of the procedures we have performed, which often include explanations of the inducation process and decisions around interventions: https://chimpsnw.org/tag/veterinary/
Let us know if you have any other questions!