Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Cle Elum Seven

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

Easter is on the way

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A whole crew of people met in Seattle to make some Easter baskets and other fun stuff for the upcoming holiday (see photos below). Robbi is also going to bring some fun stuff by before the big day! If you’d like to donate towards the celebration, we’ll pick up a few extra goodies too. It is going to be one fun party!!

Easter Enrichment making crew in Seattle

Easter enrichment all loaded up to go to the sanctuary

That snazzy chimpsanctuarynw bag with Jody’s image would look good in your wagon too. Check out the online store for the organic tote bags and other great items.

Cle Elum Seven DVD slideshow – who’s interested?

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I am so excited! We are almost ready to make the Cle Elum Seven DVD photo slideshow, set to music composed by CSNW’s very own Director of Operations, J.B., available to purchase in our online store.

Thanks to the wonderful work of Kathy Cochran of Cochran Productions, who put the DVD together, it is absolutely fantastic. It is a little over five minutes long and has LOTS of photos of all of the chimps. I continue to watch it over and over – it’s inspirational to see our chimp friends enjoying thier first several months of sanctuary life. We debuted the slideshow at the Sippin for the Seven event and received GREAT feedback.

I just need to make sure that we are going to be able to sell 25 dvds right away. We’re pricing them at only $15 a piece, so please think about all of the people you can give the dvd to for gifts (plus a copy for yourself, of course), and either comment on this post or email me separately to let me know how many you will purchase once they are available. As soon and I’ve received 25 pledges, I’ll make them available to buy!!

Thank you to everyone for your continued support and love of the Cle Elum Seven. You truly help to provide them with the sanctuary lives they deserve.

Calling cards available!

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You can now support the Cle Elum Seven by giving out calling cards (smaller than a business card) to everyone you meet! You can purchase the cards from our online store. The nominal cost of $1.00 for a pack of 25 plus the shipping fees will cover the costs of printing more and the shipping and handling. So buy lots and give out freely!

To refresh your memory about the awesome calling cards, refer to the post about WIGT Printing’s Valentine’s gift of the cards to the sanctuary. WIGT is located in California, but they can ship out their printing jobs all over, so check them out for your next printing job – they are super friendly and professional.

Below are photos of the cards. Aren’t they great?

calling-card-jody-1

calling-card-jody_page_2

calling-card-negra-1

calling-card-burrito

Negra rockin’ out

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Ok, so I am officially a dunce with regard to lighting videos. Apparently when shooting straight into the bright sunlight, everything else gets dark. Who knew?! But this is such a cool video of Negra, I thought I’d post it anyway. Negra loves to watch us dance for her. When we do, she bobs her head along. This video is of her watching JB dance – to Bruce Springsteen of course!