Foxie is always coming up with new ways to play with her dolls.
rescue
Missy and the Kong toy
Missy seemed to be having a great time working on a food puzzle this morning. Chimpanzees engage in solitary play quite often, but I can’t remember seeing anyone smile so much in the process.
Mack
Burrito’s father, Mack, passed away on Sunday at the estimated age of 46.
After spending decades in research, Mack was rescued by Save the Chimps and brought to live on a sunny island home in Florida. He died peacefully during an afternoon nap. Please take a minute to read about his life.
Our hearts go out to his human and chimpanzee families.
Rest in peace, Mack.
New enrichment
Volunteers Amanda and Tennyson helped us build a new enrichment device for the chimps. The woven fire hose has pockets to stick browse in (browse includes leaves, branches and twigs – an important part of a chimp’s diet). Many thanks to Chimps Inc. and the Honolulu Zoo for the idea! Annie, Missy and Jody spent hours picking out the cattails, bamboo and fennel.
While we were installing the browse feeder, we also hung a few more fire hose swings near the new windows. As you can see, they created the perfect game for Missy.
Gene Hackman helping the Alamogordo Chimpanzees
So far the NIH has not budged on their plans to transfer 202 chimpanzees from the Alamogordo Primate Facility to the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research.
The chimpanzees have gotten some celebrity support recently, though – Gene Hackman wrote a letter to the head of NIH asking to halt this transfer. Check out this excerpt from his letter (it gave me chills in a good way):
“As you know, efforts to save the Alamogordo chimpanzee have drawn support from Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Tom Udall, and many other people around the state and across the country. I join them in urging you to fulfill the National Institutes of Health’s goal to ‘exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science’ by allowing these chimpanzees to live out their lives in the safety of a sanctuary.”
Read the full letter here: http://pcrm.org/resch/alamogordo/hackman.html
If you haven’t already, please contact the government about this issue. Your tax money is funding the laboratory housing and future experimentation on these chimpanzees.
Find out more ways you can help by following this blog for updates, as well as:
Animal Protection of New Mexico
What big teeth you have
Here’s a nice example of why you would never want to be bitten by a chimpanzee. It may look like Foxie is threatening to kill her troll doll, but I simply caught her in the middle of a yawn.
This photo also shows how chimpanzees – even tiny chimpanzees like Foxie – are able to fit so much food into their mouths. I have seen Foxie stuff eighteen pieces of monkey chow into her mouth at once (each piece is about the size of a walnut in the shell).
More benefits of the new windows
Thanks to Karen and Don Young, LUSH Cosmetics, Anna Kircher and the blog readers, and everyone who donated during our 2nd Anniversary fundraising drive, we’ve been able to replace seven caged windows in the play room with clear, chimp-proof glass. In addition to flooding the playroom with light, there are some other benefits to these new windows: