Jamie is an avid tool user. If something falls on the ground outside her enclosure and she knows that it’s within a tool’s reach, she is on it with a vengeance. Today, a couple slippery tomatoes fell during lunch service and she made it her mission to retrieve them as a bonus snack.
chimp enrichment
Jamie’s Snow Day
Winter can be tough on Jamie sometimes – her frequent perimeter walks have to be put on pause if she doesn’t want to trudge through inches of snow. But winter’s not all bad. When the chimps don’t want to go outside, we bring the outdoors to them.
Part joy. Part magic. All Foxie.
Last week you may recall that I captured Foxie snuggled up napping on the heated floor with her dolls, Kate and Alana (Dora’s friends 🙂 ). I also promised there were A WHOLE LOT of photos of that scene to follow. So here goes…
When Foxie plays she often likes to lie on her back in a tiny chimpanzee ball repeatedly tucking her arms and legs into herself and then kicking and flailing them about as she snorts and laughs. On this day, after she woke up she rolled over and decided to engage her dolls in her play session (JB wrote a fantastic blog post on Friday about chimps and imaginary play). What ensued was part joy, part magic, and all Foxie:
It Doesn’t Take Much
We give the chimpanzees all kinds of toys to play with each day, but sometimes something as simple as a cardboard box does the trick.
Happy Birthday, Vicki!
Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by Mary Horton and family in honor of their mother, Vicki Fagerlee, for her birthday! Vicki is such a wonderful friend to the chimpanzees and we’re thrilled to celebrate her birthday here today! Mary shared this message about this gift in honor of her mom: “There is nothing she would like better for a birthday gift than to help out the chimps.”
Mary and family, thank you so much for your generous and compassionate gift for the chimpanzees and Vicki! It’s easy for us to say perhaps, but when you look into the beautiful eyes of these seven amazing chimpanzee people it’s clear that the gift of sanctuary means everything to them. And as such, it does to us as well.
Vicki, we are so happy to have had the opportunity to meet you recently and are thrilled to have you as part of our chimp family! From our hearts, thank you for embracing the chimps, welcoming them into your life and making their lives better at every opportunity. All of the primates here wish you the happiest birthday yet! We hope your day is filled with all the love, comfort and joy you provide the chimps with, and I suspect so many others as well.
Burrito:
Foxie:
Jody:
Jamie:
Negra:
Annie:
Missy:
Stuffed Socks With Raffia
Every day at the sanctuary has an enrichment theme. This enables staff and volunteers to mix up the various enrichment given to the chimps and how it is given. This way, each day is different. Some examples of these themes include “Fort Day” or “Troll Scarves Day” or “Giant Pile Day” to name a few.
We also rotate the enrichment that is given to the chimps each evening. The evening enrichment given is in the form of food puzzles. It’s not that we need to give the chimps more food at the end of the day, it’s more to give them something to work on, while staff and volunteers are busy finishing the checklist of things to do before leaving each day. Pine cones, drink buckets, KONGS and hanging puzzles are some examples of the types of puzzles given throughout the month.
Here is the calendar of evening enrichment for last month.
Stuffed socks is another type of puzzle for the chimps. Volunteers stuff long socks with paper and other clothing items, and add a small handful of nuts, seeds and dried fruit within. This way the chimps have to search through the sock to find the hidden treats. The socks can be hidden throughout the enclosure or tied to various caging and railings (using raffia).
Here are photos from “Stuffed Socks with Raffia” puzzle given to the chimps last month.
Annie took her socks and sat on the ledge to open them.
Jamie preferred to gather some of the socks and sit on the floor to open them.