Jody
Annie’s 40th
We celebrated Annie’s 40th birthday today! Her exact birthday is unknown since she was captured in the wild, but her records indicate that she was born sometime in 1974, and today is the day we picked to celebrate it. Annie certainly doesn’t act 40 at all! She’s still very young at heart—she shows her playful side daily when wrestling with Missy or running around Young’s Hill.
We wanted to celebrate her special day with some of her favorites—green grass, beets, green onions, piñatas, buckets of water, shovels, and chow! Thanks to some supplies Lisa Stuverud brought us we had a fun colorful party with new enrichment, too. We set up a breakfast forage first, and then volunteer Becca served Annie’s favorite veggies at lunch.
Here’s the party setup:
I love this photo — you can see the juice from the tangerine spraying to the side! Good shot by Elizabeth.
Annie with a mouthful of chow (she loves to wadge chow!)
Annie loves green grass, so we picked some for her and included bunches of it in their breakfast forage:
Some of her favorite veggies are green onions and beets:
The other chimps enjoyed the party too! Burrito the charmer practically posed during the forage for this photo:
Everyone loved the fruit! Here’s Jamie:
Jody:
Foxie:
Missy loved the green grass:
And Jody ended up getting the piñatas (there was a Dora the Explorer piñata too, but that was torn up before we could snap a photo!)
Foxie got a new troll and some knuckle rubs from Diana, which made her laugh:
And Negra spent a lot of time in hard-to-see spots during the day, but I did get this picture of her beautiful relaxed face:
Happy 40th Birthday, Annie!
Cowboy Party
What’s one way to make seven chimpanzees awfully happy? Throw a spontaneous party. Supporter Lisa Stuverud sent us a box of decorations and enrichment for a cowboy party (and of course we already had dozens of cowboy boots thanks to Jamie’s obsession), so we had everything we needed for a good time.
Jamie was the first into the greenhouse, and she was throwing back her first drink before most of the others even made it out the door.
She checked high and low for hidden treats. Here she’s getting ready to use a fire hose to swing up into one of the windowsills where we often hide food:
Foxie sampling the pomegranate juice:
Annie:
Negra went through several of these boot bags filled with shredded paper searching for sunflower seeds.
Jody:
Missy:
Burrito’s strategy was simple: to find as many pieces of chow as one man could hold.
Thanks, Lisa, for making the chimps’ day!
Beautiful chimps
I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but the Cle Elum Seven are really attractive chimpanzees. Just look at these beautiful faces:
Negra:
Jody:
Missy:
Annie:
Foxie trying her hand at rock climbing
Today we took advantage of the cooler weather and put the chimpanzee’s lunch out on Young’s Hill for them to forage. These forages often consist of pieces of vegetables, fruit and chow and we spread them around the hill for the chimpanzees to find. Sometimes we even put some of the food on top of the treat rock (one of the prominent features of Young’s Hill). Jamie and Burrito are the chimpanzees most likely to be seen climbing on the rock in search of food. But today, Foxie tried her hands (and feet) on the rock after all of the other chimpanzees had gone back inside. This is the first time I have seen Foxie on the treat rock!
Here she is sticking her arm in a hole to grab a few pieces of chow.
Here she is trying to get in better position.
She began traversing across the treat mound in search of more food.
Once she got all of the food pieces, she began to prepare for her dismount from the treat rock.
Finally, safe on the ground, she enjoyed the food she found on her climbing adventure.
I also managed to capture Jody, with her mouth and hands full of red cabbage and brussel sprouts.
Everyone Loves Tomatoes
There’s no denying Missy’s love of tomatoes, as Diana mentioned in her blog post recently, but today, all of the chimpanzees showed their love for Missy’s favorite food.
As soon as caregiver Katelyn walked into the garden, Missy was quick to get in position for Katelyn to serve her.
Jamie quickly joined Missy at the window directly above where the plants are growing to get her share.
Foxie realized what was happening and joined Missy and Jamie.
It quickly became apparent to Katelyn that there was not enough room left in the window for the other chimpanzees. So, she moved over to the barn doors to serve the tomatoes. It didn’t take long for Negra, who was sleeping on the catwalk right above the window overlooking the plants, to climb down to get some tomatoes as well.
Jody approached the barn doors to join in on the tomato fun with Negra on her left and Foxie on her right.
As soon as Burrito and Annie realized Katelyn was serving tomatoes by the barn doors, they quickly joined the party. But, somehow they managed to avoid the camera and I am left with no photographic evidence of them eating any of the tomatoes (although I promise you, I saw tomatoes in their mouths).
The train
There is a train that goes along the river that is in the valley below the sanctuary. Negra often likes to watch the train go by at her window spot from the playroom—the train can be seen on the south side of the building and Young’s Hill. Jody however, was on the north end of the hill this morning when the train started to go by. We don’t always hear the horn blowing (because there aren’t any large train crossings near us) but you can sometimes hear a slight screech of the wheels against the tracks.
When Jody heard that this morning, she got a little spooked, and approached Jamie for some reassurance by reaching out and hugging her back. Jamie grunted (sorry, the photos don’t show that!) to sort of affirm, “yes, I heard that, too, and it’s okay.”
Still somewhat spooked, Jody retreated toward the safety of the greenhouse.
But before she could reach the building, she saw the train passing by, and I think she was comforted in seeing that the strange noise was really coming from something quite normal in their lives.
