Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Food

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!

Breakfast forage

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It was a nice morning for a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill.

Burrito’s first priority in a forage is always chow. He fills his mouth and both hands, and occasionally his feet too, before moving on to other foods like lettuce and smoothie.

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Jody was lucky to find one of the two banana flowers that volunteer Stephanie brought this morning. She carried it with her as she foraged so that she could save the best for last.

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Missy always finds the food that we throw up high into the climbing structures. That’s where she found the other banana flower.

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Foxie is a smoothie fanatic.

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Annie took a few moments to rest on Little Mount St. Helens while she scanned the area for more chow.

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Jamie found the cups of smoothie that we hid at the very top of the hill.

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She was also quite focused on gathering strawberries.

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At first, Negra declined to go outside for the forage, so we gave her a snack in the greenhouse. But we were happy to see her make a brief appearance outside later in the morning.

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Forages and Serving – Variety is the Spice of Life

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Today I have for you a video of the chimpanzees enjoying food. Now, we all know that Burrito is pretty irresistible, especially when he’s excited about food (see exhibits A and B photos below):

Burrito with chow in mouth

Burrito with chow in mouth

 

But I think my favorite part of the video is Jamie’s look when she’s enjoying the last bit of smoothie from a dixie cup. See for yourself:

Are Chimpanzees Picky Eaters?

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People are often curious what foods the chimps like. The Cle Elum Seven as a group are not very picky – not nearly as picky as other chimpanzees I’ve known. The bulk of the food we provide for the chimps is raw (or sometimes baked or otherwise cooked) fresh produce, and almost everyone eats almost everything we serve. There are a couple of exceptions, of course.

Jamie, for example, eats almost everything, but really does not appreciate the skin of carrots, so we peel hers for her. She also will often turn up her nose if there’s raw spinach in the chimps’ morning smoothie, though I discovered the other day that cooked spinach (frozen and then thawed and blended up with some fruit and almond milk) is better than okay in her opinion. Foxie is probably the pickiest, and declines several different vegetables, preferring fruit. Surprisingly, she loves smoothie with either raw or cooked spinach, even though it’s doubtful she would eat spinach on its own.

Strangely (or maybe not so strange for those who agree with their tastes), as a group they don’t seem to care much for zucchini or summer squash, but they love pumpkin and they like spaghetti squash, so we’re always asking each other – do you know if they will eat this squash? This is what happened tonight when Elizabeth and volunteer Tania were getting dinner together. Elizabeth held up a butternut squash and asked if I knew if the chimps liked that variety. I really wasn’t 100% positive, but Negra gave us the answer with her food squeaks:

Negra eating butternut squash

Negra holding squash

It turns out they all loved it. Missy was probably the most excited, but was moving far too fast to get photos. We’ve learned it is always best to give things a try, even if there’s a chance that one of the chimps might not like one of the foods we serve. Sometimes tastes change, and, because we provide as large a variety of produce as possible and always have three or more choices in a given meal, there’s always something for everyone.

Jamieween 2014!

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It’s a birthday celebration. It’s a holiday. It’s….Jamieween!

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Our thanks go to Jayne, Sherry, and Lisa for sending such amazing party supplies, and to Stephanie for continuing her annual tradition of carving a special pumpkin in Jamie’s honor. These chimps are lucky to have such incredible supporters.

Happy Jamieween!

Negra, troll dolls, and overcoming anxiety

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If you read J.B.’s blog post yesterday, you know that we’ve had quite an interesting development at the sanctuary. Negra, who normally ignores enrichment, has taken a shine to troll dolls, which up until now have been Foxie’s “thing.”

An unrelated fact that you may have noticed if you’ve been with us for a while is that Negra is not as often pictured participating in forages on Young’s Hill as the other chimpanzees. Sometimes Negra decides not to join the group on the hill for forages. We are not entirely sure why this is, and we are trying to figure it out right now (more on that later).

The new development today is that Negra took a troll doll with her to forage on the hill!

It certainly seems that Foxie is able to get comfort from her dolls that she carries everywhere – a kind of security blanket, and perhaps Negra is experiencing something similar with the dolls now.

This is a not-very-good photo of Negra, with the troll doll in her right hand as she is walking back to the greenhouse with a mouthful of lettuce:

Negra holding troll on young's hill

 

Here is Negra passing Foxie (her inspiration?). I like the way that chimpanzees, even when there is lots of room (like 2 acres), will go out of their way to have physical contact:

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I was excited to get this photo – you can see Negra’s hand around the troll and Foxie’s around a Dora as they walk in opposite directions:

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One of the many things that I love about Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is that all staff caregivers meet twice a month to talk about the chimpanzees and raise concerns or even just share stories. One of our recent topics has been Negra’s reluctance to participate in forages. For a while, every time that Negra did not forage with the group, we would give her a meal in the greenhouse or inside the building. But then it seemed that she wasn’t even considering going onto the hill, perhaps because she knew she would get her own private picnic. She does sometimes show anxiety about going on the hill, and we don’t want to cause her to miss lunch if she is responding out of genuine fear.

However, we do want to encourage all of the chimps to experience everything that the sanctuary has to offer, to get exercise, and to work on overcoming situations that might cause a little bit of anxiety. So, a few weeks ago we decided to try not giving Negra a private meal if she didn’t at least make a move to participate in the forage. This may be providing her the encouragement that she needed to join the group in foraging.

Negra eating lettuce

At our last meeting we decided to start recording the different factors that may be influencing Negra to choose whether or not to participate in forages on the hill. But now we might just have to add one – whether or not she has a troll doll with her!

Tomatoes from the Garden

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Included among the vegetables currently ripening in the chimpanzees’ garden (thanks to volunteer Denice), are many cherry tomatoes:

Tomatoe plant in garden

 

This has not escaped the notice of one Missy Chimpanzee. The chimpanzees have a great view of the garden from all of the windows of the playroom. While many of the windows are bullet-proof glass, we do have some that have window caging over them, which allows us to open the window on the other side of the window cage for air flow. It also allows the chimps to climb on the caging. Here is Missy clinging to the window caging, gazing at the tomato plants:

Missy hanging on window caging

 

Missy may be of the opinion that the windows open so that we can give her those tomatoes she has her eye on, and that’s fine with us – it’s fun and satisfying to be able to give the chimpanzees exactly what they are asking for. Today, volunteer caregiver Connie and staff member Debbie served Missy some tomatoes.

Connie giving Missy a tomato

 

Jamie joined in on the spontaneous treat:

Debbie serving Missy and Jamie tomatoes

 

I can not emphasize enough how much Missy loves tomatoes:

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