Jody grooming and snuggling a large stuffed bunny:
Burrito having a quiet moment:
animal rescue
Interspecies grooming
In addition to grooming one another, the chimpanzees sometimes enjoy grooming their caregivers. To keep everyone safe, our fingers never penetrate the caging, but the chimps can extend their fingers through the caging and make contact with the backs of our hands (or the bottom of our shoes, as you will see in this video).
Grass forages and family photos
We recently discovered that the chimps are crazy about grass. Today we picked some fresh grass from the pasture on the grounds and spread it in the chimpanzees’ outdoor enclosure. Here are some pictures of Annie and Jody enjoying the forage. Unfortunately, the pictures were not able to capture Annie’s delighted food squeaks.
And here are a couple of pictures of JB serving lunch outside yesterday. The second one is a complete family photo!
The two stooges?
Missy and Annie playing
New hat for Jamie
We received a package of hand knit scarves and hats for the chimps the other day from a supporter in Georgia. In addition to a really sweet card, she also sent some packets of seeds since she won’t be able to attend next Tuesday’s Stand-up for Chimps comedy night in Seattle (have you bought your tickets yet?)
Jamie wore one of the scarves during the early morning and one of the hats as soon as we gave them to her. Below is Jamie with a blue hat. Pretty stylish, I would say.
An excuse to play
Way back in grad school at Central WA University I did my master’s thesis on chimpanzee play initiation. I watched a lot of video of the chimpanzees at CHCI (mostly Moja and Tatu) begin play sessions. I loved seeing them in person and on the videos indicate to each other that they wanted to play. I found that the CHCI chimps often used objects and clothing when initiating play. And so do the Cle Elum Seven! Sometimes it’s Missy pulling on a sock, and sometimes it’s an object that I personally wouldn’t normally think of as a barrel of fun, like a plastic tube.
Pre-play: Jamie adjusting her scarf, holding plastic tubing, Jody lying in straw, Foxie looking at her troll
Beginning play: Foxie takes the end of the tubing
Foxie and Jamie run around for a while, then Missy chases Jamie
During play, the object is often transferred between partners – like keep-away. Missy got the hose from Jamie and climbed up the fire hose
When Missy jumped down, Foxie decided to join in again
A little bit later, another object comes into play – the scarf that Jamie was wearing.
The Cle Elum Seven sure do know how to have fun!
Foxie and the boat bumper
I’ve been wanting to post this for a few days. Elizabeth and I hung one of the boat bumpers in the play room the other day and tied a troll doll to it. Foxie and Jamie were the most entertained by it, and Jody tried to pull up the boat bumper from above (smart!). The video is of Foxie “boxing.” She wasn’t upset – she mostly seemed curious and appeared to want to see if she could get the troll off of the rope. She wasn’t counting on the troll bouncing back!
