Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee rescue

An excuse to play

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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
Jody, Jamie with hose and scarf, Foxie

Beginning play: Foxie takes the end of the tubing
Jamie and Foxie with hose

Foxie and Jamie run around for a while, then Missy chases Jamie
Missy and Jamie playing with hose

Missy and Jamie playing with hose

During play, the object is often transferred between partners – like keep-away. Missy got the hose from Jamie and climbed up the fire hose
Missy with hose

When Missy jumped down, Foxie decided to join in again
Jamie, Missy and Foxie all playing, trying to get the tubing from each other

A little bit later, another object comes into play – the scarf that Jamie was wearing.
Missy with Jamie's yellow scarf, feet flying

The Cle Elum Seven sure do know how to have fun!

Foxie and the boat bumper

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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!

And the party continues

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Here are a few still shots from yesterday

I had to take one “before” shot of the cornbread peeps and the Passover Harrosset on Matzah (hope I got that right!). We really can’t thank the volunteers and supporters enough for making Easter, and everyday, such a treat for the Cle Elum Seven and the CSNW staff too!

Easter bucket, cornbread peep, celery with pnut butter, matzoh with harosset

One of the many, many things that I like about chimps is they like what they like – they aren’t as influenced by human hang-ups and ideas about what’s “snack” food and what’s “just a vegetable”. Thanks to a donation from a far, we bought some fresh produce Easter morning that the chimps don’t get frequently – cucumbers, green onions, sweet potatoes and coconuts. Jody and Missy were competing for who could grab as many green onions as they could.

Missy eating a green onion

And here is a man and his treasured coconut

burrito-holding-coconut-easter_web_mg_9627

The party seemed to be still going on this morning… Foxie was eating a coconut when we arrived (quite happily), and Missy and Annie did not even consider coming in for breakfast. After breakfast, Jamie donned an Easter bonnet (or perhaps more of a Spring gardening hat) briefly:

Jamie day after Easter wearing hat

Foxie playing in mirror, continued

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I caught a couple of still photos the other day when Foxie was playing with her troll-in-the-sock while watching herself in the mirror.  Missy did persist in trying to get Foxie’s attention and eventually engaged Foxie in play. I think they are both “kooks” 🙂

Foxie playing in mirror with troll-in-the-sock1

Foxie in front of mirror with troll-in-sock2

Foxie big playface, Missy with blanket

Missy bipedal, playface

more on Travis and pet ownership

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Although much of the coverage on the tragedy of Travis, the chimpanzee in Connecticut who mauled Charla Nash and was subsequently shot and killed, has been frustrating to say the least, there have been a couple of good interviews included in media items very recently which I wanted to share.

This video segment includes an interview from an expert at Save the Chimps Sanctuary in Florida.

This article adds more information to the bigger story. Here’s are a few excerpts from the article:

“A chimpanzee who was shot and killed earlier this week for mauling a Connecticut woman was the offspring of a chimpanzee who made headlines eight years ago when a Festus teenager shot and killed her…..

In 2001, Travis’ 28-year-old mother, Suzy, escaped from Connie Braun Casey’s farm along Highway CC near Festus…..

April Truitt, a primate expert who runs the Kentucky-based Primate Rescue Center Inc., said chimps are too wild to be privately owned. She put more blame on the Caseys for the Connecticut incident than on Herold. She said the Caseys should not have been breeding and selling chimps.”

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You can read my reaction to the mauling in this post from Tuesday. One aspect of this story that has not been getting enough coverage is how the demand for chimpanzee “actors” helps to fuel breeding operations like Connie Casey’s. Chimpanzees should not be pets, should not be used in entertainment, and should not be used in biomedical research. There is no legitimate reason for a chimpanzee breeding operation to exist.

Jamie and Burrito were both “raised” by humans for the first years of their lives and used as “entertainers” when they were young. When they became unmanageable like any chimpanzee would, they were put into biomedical research.

Thankfully they now live in a safe, secure, and social environment at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, but others like them are not in sanctuaries, and the tragedy of Travis will occur again if laws are not put into place to make the private ownership of chimpanzees and their use in entertainment illegal.

One immediate action that you can take is to urge your federal representatives to support the Captive Primate Safety Act which would make the interstate and foreign commerce of primates illegal. Learn more from the Humane Society of the United States.