Recently, I saw a video from a study of chimpanzee cognition in which chimps were presented with a peanut inside a clear tube that was mounted to the outside of their enclosure. Within a short amount of time, the chimp began filling the tube with water so that the nut would float to the top. Genius! So, yesterday I decided to see how these guys would handle the problem and zip-tied a couple of nut-filled bottles to the outside of the caging. Clearly, my method of attaching the bottles wasn’t quite as elaborate as the one used in the study, since the chimps could just turn them over, but it did keep them busy and entertained for quite some time!
Primates
Primate Awareness Week
This week at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, the recently formed student group called PAN (Primate Awareness Network) is hosting Primate Awareness Week. They have a variety of speakers from the primate community speaking about issues in conservation and captivity, including CSNW’s own Sarah Baeckler and JB Mulcahy. Sarah will be discussing her experiences working undercover at a Hollywood entertainment training facility and JB will tell the story of the Cle Elum Seven. If you are in the area, you should check it out!
Foxie and the window
The chimpanzees are still loving their chimp-proof window. Foxie, in particular, has been hanging out near the window while we clean the playroom in the morning. Here’s a video of her and Diana goofing off.
LUSH in store events
Hope to see some regular supporters and make some new friends at the Sunday, February 28th in store events at LUSH Westlake and LUSH Bellevue. See LUSH’s flyer below for details.
If you can’t make it out, you can always support LUSH and their charity pot program by buying through their online store.
News on Ning
A couple of days ago, I added a new feature to the Chimp Sanctuary Supporters network. It’s a feature that allows members to post links to news stories (or really anything). You can also add your own comment along with the link. I think it will be a nice way for us all to share stories about what sanctuaries are doing and anything that we come across about chimpanzees that we’d like to share with others. Check out Chimp Sanctuary Supporters and click the “News Share” tab to post.
Foxie- the next “Lord of the Dance”
Today, I popped in a video of “Lord of the Dance”, donated by one of our many wonderful supporters and volunteers, Stephanie Perciful. We put it on our wishlist in hopes that Negra would enjoy it, because she sometimes enjoys watching her caregivers’ dance. So far Negra hasn’t shown much interest in it and is usually too far away to see it. Foxie on the other hand, seems to thoroughly enjoy it and looks like she kind of wants to join in! Someone recently commented that Foxie may be musically inclined- I think I agree. Thanks, Stephanie! I’d say Foxie seems pretty enriched!
Note- I orginally said that the video was donated by Tamela, but it was actually Stephanie who donated it! So sorry Stephanie and Tamela for the confusion! Guess I am indeed human. 🙂
Newly designed Primate Patrol site! + great post about chimps in entertainment.
Clocktower Media, Seattle’s leading web design agency, has done it again! First, they redesigned our main website, and yesterday they just completed the redesign of our Primate Patrol site!
Primate Patrol is a program of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest committed to end the use of great apes in entertainment. Now that our site has an updated look and is integrated with the sanctuary website (it’s under “How You Can Help” on the navigation of our main website), we’ll be updating information and getting more alerts out.
The redesign coincided with an excellent blog posted yesterday by Patrick Battuello about the use of chimpanzees in entertainment aptly titled Shame. Rather than quoting from the post, I encourage you to read it in full here. Thank you, Patrick, for taking the time to write about this subject. And thank all of you for writing letters to producers and directors who have used chimpanzees trained for the entertainment industry. Many people simply need to be informed.
And a big thank you to Clocktower Media for the donated design services. Thanks to you, we’re reaching more people!
