As Diana mentioned yesterday, the weather has (off and on) been incredible the last week or so! Yesterday it actually got up to 60 degrees (!) but then there was snow on the ground this morning. So, we really have to take advantage of good weather when we have it. J.B. and Diana set up a forage on Young’s Hill yesterday and put the GoPro camera in it’s mount. As I was reviewing the footage this morning, I discovered Foxie and Jamie had a little post-forage project – to get to the bottom of this whole GoPro thing, once and for all!
chimp enrichment
Nightbag Rituals
As Diana mentioned yesterday, she got some photos of the chimps enjoying their nightbags last Friday. As most of you know, Negra is the biggest fan of nightbags and almost seems to live for that time of the day. But the reality is, nightbags are truly loved by all. Each one of the chimps has their own ritual with nightbags. If we serve them in the greenhouse, everyone immediately scatters when they get their bag, heading off to a safe and more isolated location. Nightbags are a prized possession, so everyone is careful to ensure their bag is not stolen by someone. Jamie immediately goes up to the window sill, tears it open and dumps everything out so she can pick through what she wants to eat first. Negra doesn’t tend to move away very far, as eating it is her number one top priority (not to mention I think she knows no one would steal her nightbag!). She tears a hole in the bag and munches on it through the hole, allowing nut shells and empty sunflower seeds to collect on her belly. Jody tends to lay down to eat hers, usually tearing it open but leaving it neatly on the bag while she picks through the mix with her lips. Annie usually bites a hole in her bag and holds it like a cereal bowl. Foxie’s method is pretty similar to Annie’s, only she usually dumps small amounts in her hand and sorts through it there:
Missy usually tears it open and spreads it open like Jamie- a perk of being a more dominant chimp, in that you don’t have to worry about people stealing it as much so dumping it out isn’t as big of a deal. And then you get to go through and eat each nut and seed at your leisure:
Burrito uses the cereal bowl method as well though I think his favorite part is going back and sorting through people’s abandoned scraps!
The Charmer
Burrito often bites on something when he’s feeling playful. Here he’s doing his best to charm me into playing with him while I’m trying to take photos.
Exercise
Now that the snow has melted and the sun has returned, the chimpanzees have been really enjoying being outside on Young’s Hill. This morning we witnessed an impressive burst of activity. I can imagine how good it must feel to them to be able to stretch their legs.
Food service
At CSNW, we follow the philosophy that the chimpanzees are in captivity not by choice, and we see it as our duty to let them live their lives out in the best possible way. Essentially, we see ourselves as servants. We clean their enclosures, we serve them their meals, and we play games that cater to what they like best. For instance, I heard Sarah had a box with trolls in it on her head the other day. Anything to make Foxie laugh! And last week, I heard that JB wore some cowgirl boots for Jamie.
On Monday I posted a photo of Jackie serving dinner to the chimps on our Facebook page. It made me realize that we don’t really post about their normal food service—when we post about food it is typically because of a big fun forage. Forages are more similar to how chimps would find food if they were in Africa, but we don’t do a forage for every meal mainly because we want to make sure everyone is getting enough food. Since they aren’t in the wild and aren’t able to continually forage, they depend completely on us to make sure they get their yummy fruits and veggies. Sometimes we make a prepared cooked dish, like oatmeal, rice, or pancakes. They love prepared meals but they are perfectly happy with just fresh produce which is the healthiest option anyway, so that is usually what they get.
For breakfast, we serve a fruit smoothie with ingredients that change daily but always include protein powder. We cut up a couple different fruits and also have a bowl full of nuts as an appetizer. They also get multi-vitamins, probiotics, and fiber at breakfast. Lunch is fresh veggies—usually about 3 or 4 veggies each. Dinner is either a prepared meal accompanied by a fruit and/or veggie, or more often just fresh produce. I like to do a mix of fruit and veggies at dinner, but it doesn’t really matter too much. We cut all the produce into pieces that fit nicely through the caging, and the chimps usually take the pieces to their hands or straight to their mouth. Smoothie and other drinks are served by pouring from a cup straight to their mouth. (This video shows a little bit of the breakfast routine.)
Below are some pictures of dinner tonight.
Negra getting pear to her mouth:
Annie getting pear to her hand:
Jamie getting orange to her mouth:
Missy getting onion to her hand:
Jamie getting banana to her mouth (and Missy enjoying hers in the background):
Foxie getting onion to her mouth:
Floppy ears
I just happened to notice that Burrito has 996 “likes” on Facebook! Let’s get him to over 1000! It shouldn’t be hard with an adorable video like the one below. “Like” or share this blog post with your Facebook friends and suggest they “like” Mr. B, if for no other reason, because his ears wiggle when he chews, and who can resist that?
Enriching Jamie
Recently I was looking back at some old blog posts written by Diana and J.B. before the chimpanzees arrived in Washington. In this post, Diana describes Jamie after meeting her for the first time during a visit to the laboratory. It struck me how accurate Diana’s first impressions turned out to be. Five years later, Jamie still demands our time, energy, and creativity to keep her satisfied. It is sometimes hard to know what she’s going to like, but choice is essential. Diana also correctly predicted that we’re always happy to indulge.
After we clean the playroom each morning, we put out clean blankets and a heaping basket of enrichment. Jamie’s routine is to first gather any boots, then stroll around checking out the rest of the toys to see if anything is of interest. Today she came across this loofah and gave her face a quick scrub.
