Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
In a previous post, I mentioned how it seemed like Missy was anxious for the other chimps to become comfortable on the hill so that she’d have someone to play with. Thankfully, Missy’s best friend Annie has decided that she’s ready to take advantage of her new two-acre playground.
As many of our readers know, Jamie is the most dominant chimp of the Cle Elum Seven. That means that if food is nearby, whether she is interested in it at that moment or not, the other chimps respect it as hers and avoid grabbing anything that she might consider her own. You’ll see a couple interesting politics in the following video. Burrito knows that Jamie has left some chow on the floor and abandoned them to start wrestling with Foxie. He’s waiting for a point where he can take advantage of that distraction and get the chow pieces for himself. Once he eventually gets his opportunity, Foxie catches him in the act, and wants some for herself. Although Jamie still appears uninterested, Foxie asks for her permission to take some chow… but Jamie decides that she wants to keep the few pieces remaining for herself.
Missy isn’t the only one who’s getting plenty of running in on the hill. It’s so awesome seeing the chimps getting to really run a relatively long distance for perhaps the first time in their lives. They are getting so much exercise!
Negra continued her playful streak this morning, but I think her real intention was to steal Jody’s bed.
Negra apparently likes her playmates to hit her on the head.
Volunteer Connie was telling Jackie and myself about these neat things called “infinity scarves.” They are made out of t-shirts and look pretty fashionable in my opinion. We thought the chimps might enjoy one so we decided to make one out of an old style CSNW shirt. Jackie and Connie took it into the chimp area to stretch it out and see if anyone was interested in playing. To everyone’s shock, Negra was interested in playing a game of tug-o-war. She does not play very often with caregivers, and definitely not for long periods of time. This game went on for infinity! What’s even more interesting is that Negra woke up on the wrong side of the nest today—she was a little grumpy all morning. I’m glad we were able to cheer her up!
I’m pretty sure our camera was experiencing cuteness overload on Halloween. The following is a clip of some more of that cuteness I caught just before letting the chimps into the Playroom for their party. Jody and Negra rarely play, and certainly not with each other, so not only was it super cute, but it was a rare sight to see too!
