Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
We received a package of hand knit scarves and hats for the chimps the other day from a supporter in Georgia. In addition to a really sweet card, she also sent some packets of seeds since she won’t be able to attend next Tuesday’s Stand-up for Chimps comedy night in Seattle (have you bought your tickets yet?)
Jamie wore one of the scarves during the early morning and one of the hats as soon as we gave them to her. Below is Jamie with a blue hat. Pretty stylish, I would say.
J.B. was hanging some more firehose yesterday – this time in the playroom. As Jody was watching, Foxie decided to start a game of wrestle and chase with Jody.
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
Beginning play: Foxie takes the end of the tubing
Foxie and Jamie run around for a while, then Missy chases Jamie
During play, the object is often transferred between partners – like keep-away. Missy got the hose from Jamie and climbed up the fire hose
When Missy jumped down, Foxie decided to join in again
A little bit later, another object comes into play – the scarf that Jamie was wearing.
The Cle Elum Seven sure do know how to have fun!
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 🙂
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 was genuinely nesting with a blanket this morning
and even lied down on it ever-so-briefly!
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:
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!
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.
And here is a man and his treasured coconut
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:
