Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Jamie

The Wonder of the Season

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For Burrito, the wonder of Christmas includes Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest’s traditional hanging (and therefore spinning) Christmas tree. Just see the earnest look on his face in the photo below:

Burrito chimpanzee gazing at tree

Not surprisingly, the reason he is so enamored with this tradition is because it involves food. Today we stuffed the tree with mini-bananas and coconut covered dates. Jamie monopolized the tree in the beginning.

Jamie spinning tree

Jamie spinning tree

Jamie spinning tree

Missy, being Missy, tried a more daring approach

Missy stand xmas tree hanging

Foxie looked on from above

Foxie looking down at xmas tree from catwalk

Once Burrito thought it was okay with Jamie to approach, he joined her in the tree worshiping

Burrito looking into tree

Burrito gazing at tree

and spinning

Burrito spinning tree

Burrito and Jamie look at tree

Jamie and Burrito spinning tree

Later, someone decided to pull the tree up onto the catwalk, which provided some browsing – the chimpanzees like to eat the pine needles too, making the whole tree a treat!

Negra sit by tree

and it served as a nesting companion for Negra too

Negra lay by tree

 

Welcome, Christmas!

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Christmas (and a whole lot of troll dolls) arrived in the chimp house this morning! And thanks so much to volunteer caregiver, Patti, an amazing fireplace, loads of decorations, and an incredible Christmas lunch!:

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Foxie checking out one of the stockings:

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Patti, made the most incredible Christmas lunch, complete with field roast and cashew gravy, cranberry sauce in pumpkins and sparkling apple cider!:

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Negra enjoying her Christmas dinner as the trolls look on:

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Missy enjoying some Brussels sprouts:

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See if you can spot Annie:

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A big hit of the day were these giant cardboard tubes which came courtesy of Santa’s elf (and volunteer caregiver, Seana), which she stuffed with paper and nuts:

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Foxie gazing adoringly at one of her many new trolls:

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And in true holiday fashion, Burrito was too full to move by the end of dinner, but that didn’t stop him from making room for pumpkin and Brussels sprouts that lay within arms reach:

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Annie’s feet as she takes a rest after the celebration:

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And for all of our Jody fans, no worries, she enjoyed the Christmas extravaganza as well, she was just avoiding the paparazzi today. Thank you so much to volunteer caregivers, Patti and Seana, for making the chimpanzees’ day so wonderful, amazing supporters Jayne R. and Pam O. for supplying trolls and decorations, Laurel H. for sponsoring today, and to everyone else who contributed to today’s festivities. And from my heart (which in Grinch style grew three sizes the day I met these chimpanzees) thank you to all of our supporters near and far who help us give the chimpanzees the kind of days they deserve. From all of the primates here at CSNW, we wish you the happiest of holidays!!

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.

Not Funny

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It’s days like today, when it’s pouring down rain relentlessly upon our heads, that being a chimpanzee caregiver can become even more challenging than it already is. Just imagine trying to keep otherwise generally active chimpanzees entertained when the weather isn’t cooperating!

As you can see here, the weather definitely didn’t feel like cooperating today. This is what Young’s Hill looks like this afternoon:

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While many of the chimpanzees have taken advantage of the weather to engage in some indoor shenanigans others, like Jamie, are not having any of it. Here you can see Foxie & Negra playing while Jamie looks on:

Some days weather is just too much to overcome. I think, perhaps, Jamie’s having one of those days.

Thanksgiving

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Negra:

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Annie:

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Jamie (with Foxie in the background):

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Jody:

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Burrito:

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We have so much to be thankful for today: volunteers Patti, Denice, Sandra, and Joel, who spent their holiday caring for the chimpanzees; supporters like Robert Maurer who sponsored today for the chimps; and all of you out there who love the Cle Elum Seven as much as we do. Happy Thanksgiving!

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!

Eye gaze

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Primatology is such an interdisciplinary field—it’s a mix of anthropology, psychology, zoology, biology, and ethology—and depending on a primatologist’s background, they have very different interests. If you have an anthropology background for instance, you might be interested nonhuman primates from the perspective of human origins for group size, culture, linguistics, and so on.

My background is in psychology, so in many of my classes we studied comparative cognition of nonhuman primates and humans. One thing comparative psychologists study is theory of mind. Do nonhuman primates have a theory of mind? That is, do they understand that other individuals have different beliefs, desires, and perception than their own? There’s a ton of behavioral measures that researchers use to determine if an individual—nonhuman or human—has a theory of mind.

One behavior that is evidence of a theory of mind is eye gaze and joint attention. Chimpanzees, like humans, communicate with eye gaze. They use it with each other and with humans, too. For instance if some food has dropped just out of reach, Burrito might get a caregiver’s attention by making some noise, and when they approach him he will look straight toward the food item. If we follow his gaze we see the peanut he’s trying to get. Things like this happen all the time, and for us, common sense would say that of course chimpanzees have a theory of mind. Burrito understands that until he grabs my attention and points it out to me, I am not aware of the peanut lying just outside the caging.

Very frequently we are asked if eye contact is OK with chimpanzees. Well, it is! And they make eye contact quite frequently. It’s one way they communicate with us.

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