Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Enrichment

Christmas Eve!!

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Christmas Eve is the most exciting time of the year. There is so much anticipation built up, and Christmas is only one sleep away! I think the chimps have been pretty excited the past couple days and are getting a little restless for the Christmas party! So, that is why today we tried extra hard to keep the chimps (Jamie) very busy. Jamie had her normal routine of laying on a barrel to supervise chimps and/or humans (mostly humans), make her caregivers put her favorite boots on, build her nests, play a little chase, and monitor the cleaning. After cleaning the Playroom we put out fire hose knots as some daytime enrichment and I stuffed Jamie’s folio with a few crayons, some paper, and a book. Well, let’s just say Jamie has been very busy, or at least for most of the day! Later she needed a nap, nestled around her books, fire hose knots incorporated in her nest, and a boot tucked in her pelvic pocket for safe keeping!

Snow and peanut butter

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Cold, wintery days always bring a change for the chimpanzees and while they always have the choice to go outside when they want, if it’s too wet or cold, they often prefer to keep their forays short and return to the warmth of the chimp house for indoor activities. As caregivers we’re always trying to stay a step ahead to meet their anticipated needs for any given day and knowing the chimps will probably be spending more time indoors sets our wheels turning on how to keep their active minds busy and engaged and how to jazz up their days.

We often utilize food puzzles during the day as an added activity and thought today was perfect for two chimp favorites: buckets of snow with a few raisins buried in them and dipper tubes with peanut butter. Dipper tubes are small PVC pipes that we screw into the caging from the outside and the chimps use their fingers or a tool to get the contents out. Kind of like indoor mini termite mounds minus the termites. 🙂

Beautiful Annie was quite enjoying her peanut butter “termites”:

Bonus photo of Jamie napping:

The New Boot Ritual

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Jamie received a new pair of boots from our wish list this afternoon. She has a specific series of rituals that must be followed when she receives a new pair of boots. First, one of the staff or volunteers must wear the boot and join Jamie on a walk around the hill. After returning, Jamie expects the boot wearer to meet her in the greenhouse for a grooming session.

Jamie begins by inspecting the boots carefully.

She encourages the caregivers to show her all of the features of the new boot, such as Velcro or zippers.

Then she begins to groom the boot with a tool – in this case, a wooden chopstick given out earlier as part of a food puzzle.

Eventually Jamie will ask to groom the caregiver herself, pointing and gesturing toward specific areas she wants to groom. Sometimes it’s a freckle, other times it’s a scab or hangnail. She also likes to untie our shoelaces with her grooming tool. Her dexterity is incredible, even when she’s holding the tool with the very tips of her fingers.

With a brand new pair of boots, Jamie will often insist on being given them immediately after the grooming session is finished. With boots that she’s had for a while, she will typically ask for them back when the staff are doing their closing rounds. But you can only give them back to her when she’s ready. If you drop them in the chute too early, she will take them out and throw them back to you (or rather, at you) from an opening high up on the playroom caging. When she is truly ready to receive them, she will wait by the chute and issue a low moan of contentment as they are dropped in. Eventually she will make her nest for the night include them or even use them as a pillow. Only then can you close up for the night, knowing that Jamie is satisfied.

Intriguing browse

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This weekend the chimpanzees tried Lemmon’s Willow browse for the first time and they LOVE it! It has this amazing sticky sweet smell that reminds me vividly of hanging out in the shade along the local Yakima River during those warm summer afternoons.
Apparently, if you ask many of the chimpanzees, the leaves (and even some bark) make pretty great eating and wadging materials. Jamie found a dual purpose for the branches today, as I kept catching her using them as long supple tools. Luckily, she kept her mayhem relatively tame and didn’t try to spear any unsuspecting caregivers.

Here’s Jody working on a branch last night:

And Missy expertly snacking on the leaves:

Sparking an Idea

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There’s so much that happens at the sanctuary that we often have stories or tidbits we want to share on the blog that get “bumped” for something else noteworthy, heartwarming, or amazing (all of these adjectives describe yesterday’s post about Negra! My heart will remain full after that experience for a very long time to come).

Here’s one of those stories that got bumped for something else, but I still wanted to share it because I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

A couple of weeks ago, J.B. found a small wasp nest (sans wasps) and brought it into the office. I was working in the chimp house that day, and he suggested that I give it to one of the chimpanzees who likes to eat wasp larvae. The known connoisseurs of wasp larvae currently are Jamie, Missy, and Jody. Always eager to please the boss, I first offered it to Jamie. When I presented it to her and pointed out the holes that were filled in with grubs, I’m positive she recognized what it was, but, to my surprise, she did not gesture for me to give it to her. So I said, “Okay, Jamie, I’m going to give it to someone else.” She remained where she was and let me leave without a protest.

I found Jody lying in a pile of blankets in one of the front rooms. When I showed her the wasp nest, she leapt out of bed and put her lips up to the caging so I could give it to her. She was extremely happy with this unexpected gift and took it back to her nest with a contented low moan. Jody was probably grateful for this wasp-free (and therefore sting-free) nest, given her experience last month.

Several hours later, Jamie indicated that she wanted to go on a walk. As per the routine, I donned some boots and headed out to join her on the opposite side of the fence. She did not continue along the perimeter path, however. Instead, she made a beeline for the structure we call Negra’s cabin.

I watched her with curiosity as she climbed to the top and then sort of swung into the cabin, reaching with her right hand. I had no idea what she was doing until she slithered down the cabin support log and I saw her pick up something from the ground. That’s when I figured out that she had removed a wasp nest and was collecting the spoils.

Rather than resuming the walk, she headed back to the greenhouse. When I caught up with her, I found Jamie enjoying her treasure and Missy sitting next to her, ready for anything Jamie might drop or discard.

The wasp nest that Jamie had captured was at least three times the size of the one that I had offered her earlier. She meticulously broke it apart piece by piece with her lips, eating the larvae one by one.

There are three things that I love about this incident and the way Jamie works:

Number One: She rejected the free larvae offered earlier and instead worked to obtain larvae on her own. This is somewhat typical of Jamie – she likes puzzles and will chose to work to get food instead of having it handed to her, though I’ve never seen her reject an unexpected gift of food.

Number Two: This is a bit speculative, but I believe that showing Jamie the nest earlier in the day sparked the idea of her hunting for a nest of her own – maybe in that moment she thought about where she could get a better specimen than the puny thing I was offering. She didn’t run out to find a nest right away, though, she waited until the evening hours when nothing else was going on and she was looking for a bit of adventure.

Number Three: I’m always thrilled when the chimpanzees do something that they figured out on their own and show off their chimpanzee foraging skills. As we’ve written before, we humans didn’t recognize wasp nests as having potential food, particularly for this group of chimpanzees that grew up far away from their natural habitat and had never shown an interest in eating anything in the insect realm.

It’s a reminder that they are intelligent wild beings who inherited a particular skill set that allowed their species to survive in a variety of environments across equatorial Africa.

Jamie may like boots and blankets, but she also likes wasp larvae. And she’s perfectly capable of finding it on her own, thank you very much.

Chimpanzees and Cattails?

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The Cle Elum Seven chimpanzees and their relationship with cattails goes way back. In fact, I can’t think about cattails without thinking about Burrito covered in cattail fluff way back in 2008.

We have a couple of big ponds and some wetland areas around the property and the cattails look just beautiful right now, so Anna chopped some down to add to the chimps lunch forage on the hill today.

Jody in particular likes fresh cattails and she eats both the long green leaves and the brown flowers that remind me of corn dogs. After foraging for the lunch veggies, Jody collected as many cattails as her mouth could carry and headed for the greenhouse.

 

Meanwhile, Negra had the escher structure to herself and was enjoying all of the food I had scattered from top to bottom.

In fact, Negra climbed up higher than I’ve ever seen her go before!

 

Today, Negra brought a friend with her on her adventures – a green-haired Strawbery Shortcake doll.

 

After a good long time foraging, Negra too went back to the greenhouse. When she spotted Jody’s cattails, she decided she should take a couple. Being the Queen, Jody allowed this theft to happen.

Negra really has been a new chimpanzee lately. Not the food-stealing – that’s been part of her repertoire for a while, but climbing up high and staying out on the hill for a long time is new. She’s also been very playful with us caregivers. There is absolutely nothing better in this world than seeing Negra laugh and be happy and relaxed. She just continues to remind us that everyone grows into themselves on their own timescale. Welcome to the sanctuary, New Negra.