Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
The chimps usually are not too interested in music (or any noise-making things in general) but today Jamie was really interested in playing this toy ukulele. She carried it around for most of the afternoon! She kept looking at it very up close, and my assumption is that she was trying to figure out how the noise was coming from the hole in the ukulele.
Jamie likes to draw with pens and occasionally with crayons, but she’s not much of an artist with paint. She used to paint a lot when she first arrived at the sanctuary (we have some of her earlier pieces for sale in our store), but lately her focus has been more on eating the paint than actually creating something with it. However, volunteer Seana gave her some finger paint yesterday and she created quite the masterpieces!
Jamie loves a project- pretty much any kind of project. It could be as simple as filing her nails, or stuffing a straw inside of another straw, or as complex as attempting to tear apart the building– she always has something going on. She’s often engaged in projects that are far from natural chimpanzee behavior, but as Diana mentioned in her post last week, captivity isn’t natural, and given her history, it’s not all that surprising that her interests are very human-oriented. Chimpanzees are smart, and they often mimic behavior to reach their desired end result, but Jamie is no doubt a step above the rest.
After seeing J.B.’s recent post about Jamie “sewing”, supporter Wanda Trotta found these great sewing cards for her. I took it out to demonstrate before giving them to her and she was definitely interested, as you’ll see below.
Last week’s spiderweb had some pretty amazing details that may not have been captured by the video. There were lots of little bugs (bees, caterpillars, butterflies) caught in the web, along with troll dolls, stuffed animals, beaded necklaces, and plastic Slinkies. The Slinkies ended up being a nice touch, because when Foxie would shake the web, they bounced all over the place, which may be why they got so much attention that day. At one point, I caught Jamie stringing some of the ribbon through the coils (much like she was “sewing”) and later, Missy took one up stairs and played with it for a while. I like how she almost looks proud of her creation in the video below.
The slinkies were sent by our friend from Oregon, Leslie Sodaro, who sends us some of the most amazing things for the chimps! From hilarious stuffed animals (some of my recent favorites being Spock, Alf, Richard Nixon, and Betty Boop) to crazy dolls that Foxie flips for (literally!), when we get a package from Leslie, we know we are in for a treat! Thanks for always keeping the chimps (and humans!) so enriched, Leslie!
Here are a couple more of Leslie’s finds:
Burrito with the blue fish:
Foxie and the wrestler:
This video is a little longer than we usually make them, but Jackie and Sarah got so much great footage of yesterday’s party that I had trouble deciding what to leave out. Enjoy!
Today Jackie and I set up a giant spiderweb in the playroom with some ribbon and crepe paper. Foxie was pretty entertained! She spent at least 45 minutes pulling and slapping the web.
Annie and Missy have the goofiest friendship! They were having lots of fun on the catwalk the other day.
