Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Enrichment

Burrito Chimpanzee

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Age: 33. His actual birthday is January 6, 1983. Click on the link to find out more about Burrito’s history prior to arriving at CSNW.

Nicknames: B, Mr. B, Bub, Bubs, Bubba

Best friend: Foxie

Favorite food: FOOD!!!!!

Best known for: His love of food, playing chase with caregivers, getting massaged while playing tug-of-war, playing with Foxie, his impressive displays, banging on the doors and spitting water (especially geared toward the lead caregiver while he/she is operating doors)

Distinguishing physical characteristics: Well, he’s a boy, so that part is pretty obvious. He has a lot of white freckles on his face and is missing the top part of his right ear. He’s pretty excited a lot of the time, so his hair stands on end (pilo erect) making him appear “fluffy”.

Personality: Fun, sweet, playful, cute, goofy, silly, charming, handsome and energetic. He can also be a very boisterous troublemaker!!

Other: Sometimes while walking around Young’s Hill, he does a little “goat-like kick” and although he is the only male of the group, he is not the most dominant.

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One of my favorite videos is of Burrito playing with his new friend.

Jamie’s choice

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Jamie spent her childhood living with a trainer. Her records are scarce, but she was most likely used in some form of entertainment before being purchased for use in biomedical research at around the age of nine. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating to see chimpanzees (or any wild animal) robbed of their natural lives, their childhood, and their family and social structures in order to provide so-called “entertainment” for humans. While we cannot change the histories the chimpanzees have experienced, or the fact that they will be in captivity for the rest of their lives, we do our best to provide them the space to be themselves, exactly as they choose in every minute of the day. A safe, dignified and loving home in which their “chimpanzee-ness” can come out.

We give the chimpanzees a variety of enrichment each day to keep their curious and intelligent minds engaged as much as possible, but whether they play with it, nest with it, tear it up or ignore it, it’s their choice. Jamie is highly intelligent and most likely as a result of her unnatural history, she is also very human oriented in her interests. She will often choose to use enrichment in ways that the other chimps don’t. But that’s the key – she gets to choose. When Jamie first arrived here she periodically chose to wear clothing that was included in enrichment, but over time her desire to do this has faded away and thankfully been replaced by chimp like activities such as walking the perimeter, playing with her friends, and being the boss of us all. But given her unnatural history, it’s only, well, natural that she would still incorporate things that are familiar to her in her play from time to time.

So while supervising the cleaning of her home from atop her barrel, this was one of Jamie’s choices:

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An upside-down-Jamie-on-a-barrel is always a happy Jamie.

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If you’d like to learn more about how you can help end the exploitation and abuse of great apes, please check out our advocacy program, Eyes on Apes, and sign up for our Take Action Alerts. Just as Jamie once did, there are others who need your voice.

Foxie chimpanzee

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Age: 39. She was born on August 8th, 1976 at Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research in Texas.

Nicknames: Fox, Fox-fox, Tiny (she’s the smallest of the chimps here at CSNW)
Best friend: Burrito
Favorite food: Fruit and fruit smoothies!!

Best known for: Her love of troll and Dora dolls. She also loves to play “Toss the Troll” with caregivers. She’s known for her pirouettes, flips and somersaults as well.

Distinguishing physical characteristics: Very petite chimp with no belly, dark face
Personality: Fun, playful, goofy, silly, child-like, sweet, kind, and the peacemaker of the group.

Other: She rubs her toes together when she is content.

These photos of Foxie were taken this afternoon, before she spotted one of her Dora dolls in the raceway.
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You can find out more about Foxie’s history before arriving at CSNW at this link.

Enriching Jamie Chimpanzee

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Of all the residents at CSNW, Jamie is the most interested in participating in human activities. We’ve seen her shovel snow and use tools, along with many other human oriented projects. Our strict guidelines for enrichment mean we can’t give her absolutely everything she desires (can you imagine Jamie wielding a real power tool?!). But with some creativity, we can still find things that entertain her. The other day we had a bit of success with some new art supplies.

A shock from the past

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When I was gathering photos the other day for the Share the Chimp Love Video, I came across the photo below of Jamie and gasped out loud.

I think it’s been a few years since I saw this image, but it’s very familiar. It was taken in September of 2008, three months after the chimpanzees arrived to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. J.B. posted it to the blog back then.

It was one of the best photo portraits we had of Jamie, and we even used it for some early  postcards that we made.

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Jamie “Before”

 

But looking at it now, it’s just not the Jamie of today.

Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes sunken. Her freckles were more pronounced – maybe because they hadn’t darkened from sun exposure yet. And the look in her eyes just wasn’t the determined, curious Jamie that we now know and love.

Compare that before photo with the one I included in the Share the Chimp Love Video, taken last summer:

Jamie strong and confident

 

Or these that I took this morning of Jamie getting the most out of a new book:

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Today’s blog, by Foxie

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It’s one of my favorite things to write the blog and have the opportunity to share the lives’ of the chimps with all of you. That said, there are just days when one has the words, but no photos, or vice versa. Today, for the life of me, I could not get a single photo as the chimpanzees have spent the majority of their day in the loft of the chimp house where it’s warm, grooming one another and napping.

I asked boss lady, Jamie, if she would please write the blog for me to which she responded by throwing a nut at my head. I took that as a “No.” At this point Foxie perhaps took pity on me and came into the smaller front rooms along the human hallway to play and she and I decided to take some “selfies.” Chimpanzees are self-aware and have the ability to recognize themselves and others in mirrors and photos. Many of the chimps enjoy seeing photos of themselves after we take them, or being able to see themselves on the camera as with an iPhone. Foxie particularly seems to enjoy this form of enrichment. So as I held the phone at a safe distance so she could see herself, I snapped the photos as she gestured. (While it’s not safe for the chimps to have a phone, or for us to have them touch it as we hold it, we have been fortunate to have supporters generously donate iPads that the chimps’ can safely interact with through the caging and they do enjoy this occasionally).

So here’s today’s blog, “by Foxie.” (Apologies for the quality, but we were laughing a lot!):

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In this last photo, you can see Foxie is doing a “lip-flip” which I wrote about last week with Annie.