I recorded several clips of happy nesting today. Like wadging, which was the subject of yesterday’s blog post, nesting is a fundamental behavior for chimpanzees both in the wild and in captivity, which is why we make sure that the chimps always have lots of materials (blankets and straw are favorites) so they can choose to create their beds no matter where they are. Watch the video below!
Nesting
Lots and lots of paper
We’ve posted about the enrichment theme “lots of paper” before, but it never gets old with the chimps. They love it, so we try to work that theme into each month—so long as we have extra paper to spare. Yesterday we had plenty, including a bunch of paper from some boxes that were shipped from Amazon when people sent us supplies we needed from our wishlist. You probably didn’t know you were helping us stock the shelves AND enriching the chimps at the same time did you? 🙂
Jamie definitely appreciated the extra paper, and we threw in some crepe paper, toilet paper, and a big roll of red paper for additional nesting materials. She built the biggest paper nest I’ve seen! It was an all day project that she returned to a few times to perfect her comfy spot.
First, she started with the brown paper from the Amazon boxes and added the giant roll of red paper.
She abandoned it at one point (probably to go on a perimeter walk of Young’s Hill) and you can see just how elaborate it is:
Later she returned and added some toilet paper, which she reportedly had wrapped around her like a mummy but when the paparazzi (Elizabeth) arrived she quickly brushed it off herself. The toilet paper added a nice softness to the nest and she curled up with some boots to take a mid-day nap.
Rainy Day
After several days of beautiful sunshine, we’re having a gray and rainy afternoon today. Not surprisingly, the chimpanzees are staying warm and dry inside curled up with as many blankets as they can find. Jody has no complaints.
Carried Away
On a typical day at the sanctuary, we put out around 60 blankets for the chimpanzees. They use the blankets to build large, soft nests.
Jody, in particular, loves her blankets. (Watch a video from a few years ago of Jody building a nest out of a million blankets here.) She loves her blankets so much that she often picks up her whole nest and carries it with her when she decides to move from one area to another. While the other chimps tend to abandon their nests when they leave the area and build a new one elsewhere, it seems Jody doesn’t want to risk being left blanketless.
Blankets
Sometimes it’s difficult to film the other chimps when Burrito is around.
Missy interrupts Annie making a nest
Missy is Annie’s best friend, but she is more dominant on the chimp hierarchy. Today she took Annie’s place in a huge paper nest Annie built (called “displacement”), but Annie didn’t get upset—instead, she started to play.
“Fake Neggie”
All of the chimps have nick-names that have caught on over the years and almost all of the caregivers use with them. Annie is “Annie Bo-Bannie,” Burrito is just “Mr. B,” Foxie is “Foxie Fox!” Jody is “Jo-Jo,” Jamie is “James,” Missy is “Miss” and Negra is “Neggie.”
Missy has a tendency to sometimes lie in the “Neggie spot” which is in front of the catwalk window, where Negra likes to sit and gaze out onto the valley below. Sometimes Missy even covers herself in a blanket, in perfect Negra style. When we go to say hi to the chimps, sometimes Missy trips us up and we mistake her for Negra at first, because of her perfect impersonation. This is what we call “Fake Neggie.”
Today, Fake Neggie was in the greenhouse on the top platform, soaking in the sun…
and Real Neggie was in her spot on the catwalk in the playroom.
