Archives for May 2024

Thank you so much, Tobin, for remembering and celebrating our beloved Jody with this special day of sanctuary in her honor.

“The tradition was to celebrate Jody’s birthday each Mother’s Day. Given that she was the self-appointed den-mother of her troop, I want to honor her birthday once again. During this first year of her physical absence, it’s helped me, as I grieve, to go and look at the different photographs on the blog.”

Jody would have been 49 this year. In the lives and hearts of her chimpanzee and human family and friends she lives forever.

Burrito, Jody and Foxie:

I forgot about this one of Jody and Annie and their fire-hose-built-for-two and it made me laugh. 🙂

Burrito and Jo:

The Great Pumpkin Thief Queen:

Jody and Negra

Jody, Missy and Jamie:

How we love you, Jo…

Honey B is a wonder all to herself. She is an expert at using tools, and a genius at thinking up new ways to entertain herself using said tools around the sanctuary. She has come up with her own enrichment many times (see a few examples here, here, and here), keeping things interesting for herself, her group, and those that care for her.

Here is Honey B enjoying the new nylabone keys!

Earlier this week, we needed to collect a fecal sample from Honey B’s group for Dr. Erin. Unfortunately for the humans, the desired sample was just out of reach, even with the longest of bamboo sticks at our disposal, and we did not want to disturb the chimpanzees by asking them to shift out of their enclosure again. So Anna had an idea…”Let’s ask Honey B!”

We collected our supplies (a laser pointer, a clicker, a small cup of raisins, a spoon, and a sample collection container), and found Honey B. It was a multi-step request, as we were asking her to use the spoon we gave her to collect feces from a specific location, then return the spoon to us with the feces on it. We used the laser pointer to identify the target feces, and asked Honey B to “trade” while pointing at the spoon, then the feces. She figured out what we were asking of her very quickly, and collected the sample we needed! It was so impressive to watch her think through our request, then have what appeared to be a “light bulb” moment where she put it all together and did just what we were asking of her. We were able to move the sample into the sample container and save it to be looked at by Dr. Erin.

Thank you, Honey B!