Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Enrichment

So much to be grateful for

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The past few weeks have been a wild rumpus of weather. Pouring rain, freezing rain, freezing fog, snow and ice. The chimpanzees have been troopers, and even boss lady Jamie has been handling the interruption in walks around Young’s Hill relatively well. But they relish every chance they get to stretch their bodies and minds in between the late autumn storms.

This week we’ve had a couple of beautifully bright, sunny mornings with warmer temperatures (meaning above freezing) and Jamie, Missy, Annie and Foxie, in particular, have been heading outside after breakfast to run, leap, climb and explore. J.B. and I both captured some of the happenings.

Missy (foreground) and Annie (background) both bipedal before they sprinted off through the bamboo in a game of chase.

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Annie (L) and Missy (R):

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I love Missy’s play face in this one:

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Foxie and France Dora pass by on their way to explore:

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Missy contemplates her next move:

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Foxie and her beloved new France Dora decide to take a climb and see what they can see:

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You can just see the river that runs below the sanctuary in the top left corner.

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Jamie has made sure we are making the most of every single walkable moment with the weather breaks. The forecast is predicting a snow storm beginning tonight and through tomorrow so maybe she knows there’s no time to waste.

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And with the holidays fast approaching, all is abuzz as we begin preparations for the chimps’ holiday celebration. Donations, gifts from our Wishlist for the chimps and humans alike, and holiday cards full of love and good wishes have been pouring in! And trolls! So many trolls for Foxie! We are constantly astounded by your generosity and are so full of gratitude to you all! And we would like to share a special thank you for long-time supporter, Diana Petri, for her amazingly generous gift of the new office computers Diana and I put on the Wishlist! Diana has been patching hers together for months and mine is an old PC that has been making crazy noises when it’s forced to wake up in the morning, so to say we are excited is an understatement.

But most importantly, each one of your gifts, whether for the chimpanzees, or to help the humans care for the chimpanzees, not only provides for their direct quality care, but allows us to focus more funds toward maintaining a secure future and beginning our exciting plans for expansion and growing our chimpanzee family. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to each and every one of you who have given your support, in whatever form that has come. Every single thought, dollar and gift makes an immense difference to the chimpanzees’ lives, both now and in the future.

And to get in the spirit of the season, I will leave you with this moment from today captured by Anna. Foxie, her new France Dora (out of sight, but who was being passed back and forth between us) and I sat down to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” this afternoon. The sweet Vince Guaraldi music is some of my favorite to listen to this time of year (not to mention seeing, and okay, yes, mimicking the Peanuts characters’ dancing scene) and as Foxie loves music and dancing I thought the show might be right up her alley. Sure enough, the second she heard the music she smiled and started head-bobbing along.

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Happiest of holiday seasons to all of you!

Holiday gift suggestions

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Now that the holiday season is upon us, we are receiving numerous requests for chimpanzee gift ideas from supporters. There are a number of ways to support the Cle Elum Seven this holiday season from sending monetary donations to purchasing items directly from our Amazon Wish List.

Our wish list allows folks to purchase enrichment items that we have already approved for the chimpanzees here at CSNW. We try to give them a little bit of everything to enrich their senses and keep them occupied, but for their safety, we follow strict guidelines. These guidelines have been modified throughout the years as we have observed the chimps interacting with the various types of enrichment.

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Some examples of already approved enrichment items that may be on the wish list at any given time (which are geared directly for these chimps) include combs, brushes, hard plastic tools, wooden toys, Dora the Explorer and troll dolls, toothbrushes, slinkies, and buckets. You can also earmark a monetary gift towards enrichment so that the staff can purchase acceptable items.

Burrito with a toothbrush.
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Jody inspects tool bench enrichment.
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Foxie eating snow from enrichment container this morning.
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We also add food items to the wish list, because as many blog readers already know, food can be quite enriching! These food items are very specific items that we have approved for the chimps to consume and include multi-vitamins, probiotics, gum, organic raisins, unsalted peanut butter, and almond milk.

Here is Foxie eating the peanut butter that we put inside of the PVC enrichment tube.
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Also on the wish list are items that we do not give to the chimps, but they still do benefit the chimps. While garbage bags or printer toner may not seem like exciting gifts, they are essential for day-to-day operations here at the sanctuary! These non-chimp items include cleaning products like laundry detergent (we wash 70 plus blankets per day), latex-free gloves (for humans to use to clean the enclosures), scrub brushes, dish soap (to wash the enrichment items we give the chimps each day) and garbage bags. Other items on the list include office supplies such as pens, sticky notes, printer toner, and packaging tape, as well as maintenance tools and supplies. By updating the wish list, we are able to reflect what is needed at the time, as items are ranked by priority from highest to lowest.

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Other gift suggestions that will benefit the chimps include gift certificates from Amazon, Safeway, Fred Meyer, Home Depot and Lowes. These gift certificates enable staff to purchase materials for building chimp-approved enrichment that cannot be bought in stores, such as hanging puzzles and raisin boards.

Jamie with raisin board that J.B. made.
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Example of a PVC hanging puzzle used at the sanctuary and made by J.B.
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Supporters around the world ensure these chimpanzees’ lives are enriched and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Thank you for all your donations and for keeping the Cle Elum Seven in your thoughts this holiday season!

Video: the drama of Jamieween!

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The video below shows just some of the highlights of Jamieween (turn up the volume if you want the addition of music to add to the drama).

 

 

In addition to the fun adventures in the video, Jamie received not one, not two, not even three, but four pairs of new cowboy boots from her fan club of supporters.

One of Jamie’s top favorite foods is pears, so I decided to hide a whole pear in one of her new boots – sort of both a trick and a treat.

She immediately took that pair of boots, inspected, and nested with them:

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Jamie nesting

 

She even tried one on:

Jamie trying on boot

 

But, apparently it wasn’t the one with the pear, because the pear was still in the boot when I went into the playroom later that day to spot clean. I was shocked!

It took another couple of hours, but Jamie did finally find her birthday treat.

 

Jamie eating pear

Thank you to everyone who made this a special day for boss Jamie and us humans who had the privilege of celebrating with her!

 

Food in different forms

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One of the easiest ways to enrich the lives of chimpanzees is through food. We try and provide the Cle Elum 7 with as many different kinds of produce as possible in an effort to keep things exciting for them. Caregivers do their best to make sure the chimpanzees don’t have repeated fruits or vegetables when they prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not only do we look for variety in food, but we also try and change up the ways in which we serve an item. For some meals we might roast a food like pumpkin, while other days we might choose to serve it raw. Each day the chimpanzees enjoy fresh fruit for breakfast, frozen fruit in their smoothie, and a couple pieces of dried fruit in their evening night bags, all to help increase food diversity!

Yesterday, volunteer caregiver Stephanie brought Brussel sprouts to contribute to the chimpanzees’ dinner. Instead of coming in the more traditional bag of “mini cabbages,” these Brussels sprouts were in their original stalk form. There were lots of food grunts and squeaks as Katelyn scattered the stalks around the playroom. Burrito and Jody were exceptionally successful foragers, but Negra was the easiest photography subject. She decided to eat her stalk in front room 4 (also known as the portrait studio).

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Rainy day activities

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Today’s forecast called for rain and cooler temperatures, so we thought about what sorts of rainy day activities we could set up for the chimpanzees. The enrichment theme for the day was Fort Day, which seemed more than appropriate, so staff and volunteer caregiver Lizz set about building forts in the Greenhouse and Playroom with blankets.

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Jody is usually the one to take the forts apart in order to gather blankets for her nest, which is exactly what she did.
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Jamie took it upon herself to find the perfect rainy day activity in one of the Front Rooms. Notice the boot and magazines within her nest.
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Grooming is another perfect rainy day activity.
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But, it didn’t take long before the weather changed. Instead of more rain, the skies cleared up and the sun came out. So much for rainy day activities; the chimps moved on to foraging and spending time on Young’s Hill instead.

Burrito
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Foxie
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Jamie
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Don’t forget to check out the Summer Biddin’ online auction, which ends on September 1st. Bid on your favorite items and donate to help us exceed our fundraising goal!!

Waiting for the rain

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After a hot, dry, and smoky summer, there’s a chance we will finally get some rain this week. Though we didn’t get any today, the clouds were a nice change of pace and the chimps took advantage of the cooler weather to spend more time outside climbing and foraging.

Annie:

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Jamie:

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Missy in the foreground, Foxie in the background:

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Burrito, Jamie, and Foxie:

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Burrito:

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Foxie keeping an eye on the cows:

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Jody harvesting bamboo:

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Jody with a wadge:

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Negra and Jody foraging during lunch:

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Jody:

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Foxie and Dora’s friend:

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If you haven’t done it yet, go check out our online auction, which began today at noon. Things are going fast, but there’s still plenty of bidding left!

Jamie’s latest project

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Chimpanzees use a variety of tools for a variety of different projects. In the wild, they have been seen using sticks to fish for termites, stones for breaking open hard shells to get at nuts inside, and have even been seen using mashed up leaves as sponges to soak up water.

Here at the sanctuary, Jamie chimpanzee is no stranger to using tools to get what she wants. For example, we often put pieces of food outside of the caging and just out of finger reach to give the chimps a project to work on. Jamie will often use long plastic straws, pieces of cardboard or even sticks that she brings in from Young’s Hill to get the food items. But, sometimes she seems to love using tools just for the sake of using them. Today she took the enrichment tools we set out to work on one of the doors in her indoor enclosure. After some initial inspection, she got right to work.

Maybe she was just making sure the door was properly maintained.