Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

food puzzle

New Puzzles, New Challenges

by

Today’s blog is all about enrichment! We are so grateful to the many supporters who helped make it possible for us to purchase new enrichment and craft new food puzzles thanks their generous support during our Comfort and Joy online auction. Some of the donated supplies are still waiting to be turned in to their final form, so stay tuned for a future blog to share more. Today’s video and blog will highlight the newly made giant holey lids courtesy of Tricia M. and new troughs thanks to Kathleen C.!

I love watching the chimps meet a new challenge, and find their own ways to accomplish the task at hand. Some puzzles require a demo by the humans, but most of the time we let the chimps try on their own first. As you’ll see in the video, Honey B has come up with a very different approach to the new troughs. Honey B’s method comes as no surprise, and she accesses the treats in record time!

Below is Lucky showing off her mostly clean trough! We put sugar free strawberry pudding in the bottom, and tossed some pomegranate arils on top which stuck to the pudding, requiring that she use the bamboo stick in her hand (or a different tool) to get the pudding and pomegranate. These troughs are the perfect depth, as the chimps cannot simply use their fingers to reach the bottom, which encourages the use of a tool and engages them with the puzzle for more time. Lucky was the first to master her method, which Willy B and Terry also utilized. Sometimes we put seeds, cereal, or other non-sticky food items in the troughs, which they can access by tipping the trough towards themselves (or using the Honey B method!).

Below is a newly made giant holey lid, ready for it’s first use by the chimpanzees! I cut several holes into the large (brand new) trash can lid, and bolted a frisbee to the middle of the lid. The frisbee can easily be rotated to cover the different holes, thus allowing one chimpanzee to control access to the other holes in the lid. Peanut butter has been smeared on the back of the lid, around each of the holes. I created this with the intention of using it as a social enrichment device with Cy’s group as they continue to undergo their reintroduction. If you’d like to learn more about social enrichment, see here! The below photo is what the puzzle looks like from the chimps’ point of view.

This photo show the back of the puzzle with smeared peanut butter, and is what the humans see after hanging up the puzzle for the chimpanzees.

Willy B was the first to try out the new puzzle today. He quickly figured out how to access the peanut butter, and moved the frisbee slightly. When a conflict started in the group which required Willy B’s attention, Rayne was quick to seize her opportunity and worked on the puzzle for quite a while. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the chimps get to experience this new food puzzle, and hope to see them move the frisbee more intentionally in the future! Thank you again to Tricia M. and Kathleen C. for your generous gifts to the chimpanzees!

Enrichment is Fun

by

If you are watching with sound, you can hear that I was unable to contain my laughter at one point. Nevertheless, I attempted to frame Burrito’s silliness in the most educational way possible ;). Thanks to Krissy for the brand new Jolly Ball that she made sure Burrito had today!

We stuffed cabbage and a few nuts in each of those red ball puzzles.

Please learn more about our enrichment by perusing the Enrichment Database!

 

Memento Vivere

by

Lately I’ve been inundated with targeted ads on social media, which I’m sure those of you who are on social media know what I’m talking about. Now, I’m not saying the work or don’t work, but one in particular keeps grabbing my attention. It’s an ad of a coin with “Memento Mori” on one side, and “Momento Vivere” on the other. I have heard the expression “momento mori” countless times, but “momento vivere” was a new on to me.

“Momento mori” is a saying in Latin that roughly translates to “don’t forget to die.” Many have tried to understand the meaning behind it. The most consistent understanding is it is supposed to be a reminder that life is short and to live in the moment. I had to do some digging for “momento vivere.” What I found is that it roughly translates to “remember to live,” meaning to take time for yourself and make every moment count. Though both try to roughly make the same point about enjoying life because it is short, I will just focus on momento vivere since momento mori sounds more bleak if you don’t understand it.

Momento vivere came to mind the other day as I was spending some time with Burrito. I’m not a psychologist by any means, so I’m not sure why certain thoughts hit at certain times, but in that moment I thought about the last couple of years I have spent with him and his take on life. Burrito is kind of the living embodiment of those sayings. He doesn’t seem to dwell on the past, and is not too concerned with the future. He lives in the now, and every moment he has he doesn’t want to waste them.

My time with Burrito is always such an experience to me. Not only do I get to call him friend and spend probably too much time with him (though I don’t think he thinks the same on that one), but he always keeps me grounded. I am 100% that type of person who gets lost in their own mind; worrying about the future and regretting some of the past. But with Burrito, all that goes away and I am present in the moment with him. I’m not sure how to communicate to him so he understands, but I try to thank him every day for the reminder and keeping me in the now.

The larger message is that this is sanctuary life. Being able to just enjoying these moments of calm and tranquility. Yes. There are moments of anger, frustration, fighting, yelling, etc. But it’s those quiet moments (as seen in the video) outweigh the others for the most part.

He can’t/won’t read this, but thank you Burrito, my friend.

Some bonus photos

Negra working her way through a firehose cube
Annie enjoying a self-obtained snow treat

I couldn’t decide which one to post, so instead here are both of the photos I captured of Rayne with her “Bonobo Lucy and her Baby Yuli” during lunch. One where Rayne is a little out of focus, but you can tell it’s her Lucy book. The other you can’t tell what book it is but Rayne is in focus.

The Peanut Puzzle

by

It took Honey B a few attempts to find the right strategy for this puzzle but she got there. The most clever – but ultimately unsuccessful – strategy was to hand everything through the food chute to a human. “Humans are good at this stuff,” she seemed to be saying. Either that or “You put it in here, you get it out!” But she didn’t need our help after all.

Willy B and his Dipper Tube

by

Willy B is quite the tool-user! As you can see, enrichment doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to be effective.

It was a busy week for the block masons working on the new playrooms. You can see the walls taking shape now that the scaffolding has been taken down. Next week – fingers crossed – the roof goes on and we get ‘dried in’, so to speak. That should ensure that construction can continue even if the weather turns bad. This morning’s dreary snow/rain was an ominous start to the season.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ranch, the cows were thrilled to regain access to their winter pasture. I’ll have to share the video of them running through the fields in another post.

Burrito and his after dinner enrichment

by

The chimps are presented with different food puzzles each night before they settle down and make their nests. Volunteers placed peanuts and spoonfuls of peanut butter in cups and screwed them together in stacks. Burrito carefully unscrewed the cups from each other to find the treats but found it much easier to use his large, powerful canine teeth to rip off the lids – reminding us that an effective solution to a problem often looks different from a chimpanzee’s perspective.