In an effort to encourage Foxie to explore more types of enrichment, Diana had the idea to tie several trolls into a blanket. Foxie carried this “troll blanket” around with her today for quite awhile, sometimes walking tripedally while cradling the blanket in her free arm. The troll blanket also inspired some great play between Foxie and Jody:
Archive for March, 2009
More fun than a blanketful of trolls
Monday, March 30th, 2009Burrito
Sunday, March 29th, 2009
Portraits
Friday, March 27th, 2009Foxie (with troll) and Annie.
The life of the party
Thursday, March 26th, 2009The Cle Elum Seven are, on the whole, some of the most playful chimps I’ve known. I think its mostly due to Missy, who is always up for wrestling, chasing, or playing tug-o-war:
I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but she really loves to jump off of things. Just today, she used a boat bumper as a springboard in an attempt to get Annie to play, and later she jumped off the deck to chase after Jamie (and get her blanket back):
Negra rockin’ out
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009Ok, so I am officially a dunce with regard to lighting videos. Apparently when shooting straight into the bright sunlight, everything else gets dark. Who knew?! But this is such a cool video of Negra, I thought I’d post it anyway. Negra loves to watch us dance for her. When we do, she bobs her head along. This video is of her watching JB dance – to Bruce Springsteen of course!
Negra and her raisin board
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009Fun with trolls
Monday, March 23rd, 2009I was thinking today about how incredibly playful Foxie is. She is the most playful adult chimpanzee I have ever known. She doesn’t seem to have non-playful days, ever. When she’s not playing with Jamie, Jody, Missy or Burrito, she play games of catch-the-troll with her caregivers. And if we’re busy? Well, she just invents her own troll games, like this one this morning…
How to ruin a perfectly good scarf
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Step 1: Find someone with a perfectly good scarf.
Step 2: Chase them down.
Step 3: Grab hold of the scarf and don’t let go.
Step 4: If you aren’t able to ruin it by yourself, enlist a friend.
Step 5: If necessary, tear at it with your fingers.
Step 6: Repeat steps 3 and 4.
Your scarf should now look like this:
Animal Legal Defense Fund Blog
Friday, March 20th, 2009Recently, the chimps received a visit from Joyce Tischler, founder and general counsel of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), and Bruce Wagman, ALDF’s chief outside litigation counsel (and also a CSNW board member). Bruce and Joyce have written wonderful accounts of their first trip to meet the Cle Elum Seven, which you can read on their blog. You’ll also find never before seen videos of Jody and Foxie! We encourage everyone to check it out and support the great work that ALDF does every day to protect animals.
Get your name in paint
Thursday, March 19th, 2009For those of you not yet on our mailing list, check out yesterday’s newsletter. We’ve had an overwhelming response to it so far! Make sure you’re signed up, and send it to all your friends!
