The chimps were outside bright and early this morning to welcome the return of the sun to Central Washington.
Missy
Snake!
Given their history in captivity, the chimps here at CSNW (unlike their free-living counterparts) have probably never encountered a real snake before, but when this toy snake (see video) went out as part of their enrichment one day, they treated it with a healthy dose of caution.
Annie Upside Down
During playroom cleaning this morning, I decided to grab the camera and film the chimps through the new window. Right away, I caught Missy and Annie in an amusing game of upside down wrestling.
Missy’s icy chase game
Yesterday, Missy spent some time outside playing chase with JB. It was a bit of a slippery slope for JB, though! 🙂
Nesting, Nesting, Nesting…
Today, Jamie built herself yet another nest using a blanket and a box. This sparked a conversation between Diana and I about the similarities and differences of nesting behavior of captive vs. free-living chimpanzees. We couldn’t find many videos on the internet of free-living chimpanzees nesting, however, Jane Goodall’s Discover Chimpanzees Website has a behavior glossary, complete with video footage of the chimpanzees in Gombe engaging in a variety of behaviors, including this clip of nesting. If you compare the following video clips of Jody, Missy and Jamie (in order of appearance) to the video clip from the Discover Chimpanzees Website, you can see many similarities. Notice how the free-living chimpanzee (named Fifi) pulls the branches into her nest and pushes them down to make her bed more comfortable. It truly is an exact science.
Snow in the sandbox
Cle Elum got a little snow overnight, so this morning after cleaning the playroom Jackie and I gathered some from outside and filled the chimps’ sandbox. We buried some cranberries in there for good measure (you can see Jamie searching for them in this video). The chimps love (to eat) the snow, but aren’t crazy about the chilly temperatures, so they seemed to enjoy having a bit of the outdoors brought inside for them.
A nest with a view
The other day, someone made a beautiful nest by one of the upstairs windows with a mix of blankets and timothy hay. I am guessing this was Missy’s. She is a nesting perfectionist and often builds the walls so high that she disappears into them. Many chimps will lay directly on the floor and build the nest around them, but Missy makes sure hers has a nice cushioned bottom.
What always amazes me about chimp nests is that everything is so interwoven that you can almost pick them up whole. This, of course, comes from the instinct to weave branches together securely to keep from falling out of the trees at night. Jamie often builds her nests next to the caging, and she will take the ends of the blankets and weave them through the wire mesh. Her nests take a lot of time to deconstruct!
