Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Enrichment

Jamie and challenges

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You may have figured out by now that Jamie is a tough chimp to enrich. Her mind is so active and she requires a lot to keep engaged. Part of our job as caregivers is to come up with new ways to keep the chimpanzees enriched, and in particular, keeping Jamie busy.

Though raisin boards are already a puzzle in themselves (the chimps usually have to use tools to get the raisins out), it’s even more so when they are just out of reach. Jamie prefers the challenges. She will go right past the raisin boards that are hidden under a blanket and aim for the ones that are harder puzzles to solve.

Here you see she even learns from her own mistakes—the first board she dropped too quickly and it went too far for her to reach. At first she looks around for a tool to grab the raisin board but decides to work on the more accessible one and leave the other project for later (don’t worry—she got that one eventually, too).

After seeing this video (and likely even without watching you know already) I think you will agree that Jamie is amazing.

Video of Burrito thanks to Diana P.

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Diana P.  just became a Holiday Pal to all seven chimpanzees by taking advantage of our Candy Cane Weekend deal and donating $1500 towards our Holiday Pal fundraising! Thanks to her donation and the donations from the awesome supporters yesterday, we are freeing the blog and the Burrito video is posted below.

Don’t forget that you have until tomorrow (Monday) night at midnight to take advantage of becoming  an Alpha Pal to all seven chimpanzees at the discounted $1500 donation (normally $1680), or getting a bonus 2014 calendar for choosing the Best Friends Pal level of sponsorship. Donate now!

Without further ado, here is the always charming, Burrito Chimpanzee.

You may know from past blog posts that Burrito really enjoys popper toys, like these:

burrito with popper toy

The other day we put out a new donated toy that has “bed bugs” that pop up when you push down on others. Burrito carried it around with him all morning, occasionally stopping to push and pull on the bed bugs.

See video below, and thanks again to all who participated in the Holiday Pal fundraising ransom donations!

Green Toys!

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And our thankfulness continues! If you saw the blog yesterday, you’ll know that the chimpanzees received many wonderful new gifts from some of our amazing supporters! Well, today the chimpanzees also received new toys from Green Toys! In addition to the ongoing challenge we (and Enrichment Coordinator, Debbie) have of finding things that are new and interesting for the chimpanzees’ active minds (particularly Jamie’s!), as you can imagine, the life as an item of chimpanzee enrichment is not an easy one. So after receiving a variety of Green Toys from our amazing supporters via our Wishlist, we were pretty excited to learn that they are chimp-tested and caregiver-approved! Green Toys are not only environmentally friendly but can take a licking from the chimps and remain relatively unscathed.

Here is Jamie checking out a new dump truck:

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Jamie giving the “bite test” to a submarine as Foxie (who is still loving her new French Dora doll from yesterday!) comes to check things out:

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And Jamie checking out a new airplane (and I am pretty sure thinking she could fly one):

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Missy enjoying some orange “tea” in the tea set:

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Missy:

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Foxie:

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Thank you so much Green Toys for the chimpanzees’ gifts! And also for making great toys which just happen to be great chimpanzee enrichment!

First snow

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It’s been a pretty mild fall / beginning of winter, and we finally got our first snowfall at the sanctuary overnight. It was just a dusting, but Missy was VERY eager to get outside for a taste.

Missy's hand reach for snow

Missy eating snow

Jamie also went out quickly to get a snack.

Jamie's hands reaching for snow

Jamie with handfuls of snow

We were wondering if the colder weather might slow down Jamie’s desire to walk around the hill. The answer is no. So far four walks and counting. She did wait until the snow melted, though. Missy joined Jamie on one of her walks. She gave us a big head start then ran full-speed up the hill. You can see a photo on her Facebook page.

 

Speaking of Facebook, a few weeks ago we asked on our Facebook page how fans became interested in chimpanzees. The answers were really interesting. One person recalled the video of the chimpanzees at CSNW first experiencing a big snowstorm, which was shared on a couple of news stations.

The video, which is now almost five years old, is posted below. That was before we put the panels on the greenhouse, so really before they had a greenhouse, and long before they had the 2-acre Young’s Hill. The chimps are leaning out of front room #4 into what we called the outdoor area then. Listen to those happy food squeaks and watch the prehensile lips in action!

 

 

Hanging Around

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It seems that Foxie is upside down as often as she’s right side up. She loves to climb to the ceiling of the Greenhouse and hang by her feet, and she often swings on the fire hoses as through they’re trapezes. Today, she has carried around this plastic frying pan in her mouth for much of the day, and didn’t even put it down for her acrobatics.

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The Great Piñata Heist

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The chimpanzees had some special guests today! Friend of the chimpanzees (and the humans!) Adrienne Armstrong, along and her family and friends, Ollie, Jessy, and Jamie, paid a visit to the sanctuary to volunteer in the chimp house. And they brought the chimpanzees piñatas! And you’ll never guess who made a haul of all the loot…Annie!

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As you may recall from a previous post, as the least dominant of the chimpanzees, this is quite a bold move for Annie and an undertaking not without some risk involved. As the boss of the sanctuary, Jamie typically makes a quick claim to enrichment like piñatas, leaving the other chimps to wait for an opportunity to see if anything was missed when she casts them aside. But today Jamie was distracted by a new pair of boots being “chimp approved” in the kitchen so Annie decided to make her move.

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Jamie was briefly torn between seeing Annie with the piñatas, and staff with the new boots, but after screaming at Annie once and throwing a blanket at her from the loft, the prospective new boots won Jamie’s attention. And Annie seized not only her opportunity, but all, yes ALL, of the piñatas!

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Annie wasn’t even swayed by her best (and more dominant) friend, Missy, who continually approached her while peering at her and moderately suggesting she hand the loot over. Annie just calmly picked up the piñatas and moved her spoils elsewhere. Gotta love this girl.

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Thank you so much, Adrienne, Ollie, Jessy and Jamie, for all that you do for the chimpanzees and for making their day (especially Annie’s!!) special!