Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

chimpanzee retirement

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!

Chimp Sanctuary Supporters

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Something new and cool for all of you to check out (if you haven’t already): http://chimpsanctuarynw.ning.com/

It’s a new social network for people who support the work of chimpanzee sanctuaries. It’s a pretty neat way to communicate with one another, find out what’s going on and talk about chimps. You can personalize your page as much or as little as you want. Hope to see some of you blog lurkers on there soon 🙂

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!

Foxie nesting!! and Jamie’s new method for carrying trolls

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Foxie was genuinely nesting with a blanket this morning

Foxie nesting with green blanket

and even lied down on it ever-so-briefly!

Foxie lying down on green blanket

She was really happy about her new speedo troll doll with yellow hair from yesterday.  I tied a yellow scarf to the troll and gave it (him?) back to Foxie – this occurred right before the nesting.

Jamie seemed pretty intent on getting the troll and scarf, so I gave Jamie a substitute, which she decided to wear by tying the scarf around her torso, baby-sling style:

Jamie wearing troll

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

Fun with trolls

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I was thinking today about how incredibly playful Foxie is. She is the most playful adult chimpanzee I have ever known. She doesn’t seem to have non-playful days, ever. When she’s not playing with Jamie, Jody, Missy or Burrito, she play games of catch-the-troll with her caregivers. And if we’re busy? Well, she just invents her own troll games, like this one this morning…