Jody resting:
Missy and Annie grooming Jody:
Foxie and a new Dora the Explorer doll courtesy of friend Leslie Sodaro:
Burrito:
Archive for the ‘enrichment’ Category
Today in the greenhouse
Monday, March 26th, 2012Foxie and troll bellies
Friday, March 23rd, 2012Foxie likes to not only rub her trolls on her own belly (and other dolls like Dora or a stuffed animal with JB’s face on it), but she also likes to gently rub their bellies with her thumb. This is just a picture so you can’t really see the action, but even with the troll upside down she’s still rubbing its belly.
Hiding out
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012Negra loves to cover herself in blankets, so as we were wrapping up cleaning today, in thinking of her I was inspired to build more forts in the playroom. We have several bullet-proof glass windows in the playroom but for ventilation purposes, we have left the caging over a few of them. Negra often builds her daytime nest in front of one of the window cages, so I decided to tie blankets up to the caging and let them drape off of the railing, making it a cabana-style fort. I think Negra was pretty pleased.
Though this isn’t a great shot, I love that it shows Negra peaking around the blanket to see what is going on outside of her fort
Burrito liked it a lot too. Here he is enjoying his peanuts in his fort
Spring!
Tuesday, March 20th, 2012We brought springtime inside this morning to celebrate the equinox in memory of our friend Katie Gieser. The chimps had a lovely forage with lots of lettuce (always a special treat!). Plus paper flowers and decorations galore! Here are a few highlights:
Missy (tho I wouldn’t have known it was her unless Jackie told me!) feasting away:
Mister B amidst the spiderweb of yellow ribbon:
Jamie with her collection from the forage:
And Jamie again, posing perfectly for the camera in her springtime nest (note the boot in her hip pocket):
Dora Rescue
Sunday, March 18th, 2012This morning, Foxie played a little game on the hill in which she put Dora on top of one of the beams of the climbing structures and played like she was going to push her off. But, Dora was safe in Foxie’s hands, as she always had another hand below to catch her if she fell.
New boots for Jamie
Wednesday, March 14th, 2012The kind folks at Seattle-based Chocolate Shoebox are high on Jamie’s list these days. They recently donated several pairs of new boots via a donation drive put on by the Seattle Animal Defense League. After having them modeled for her by her caregivers, she was eager to inspect them closely and take them for a test drive.
Thanks to Chocolate Shoebox and Seattle Animal Defense League!
Foxie, the closet nester?
Thursday, March 8th, 2012When Foxie arrived at CSNW almost 4 years ago, she wanted nothing to do with toys and especially blankets. While in the lab, the chimps weren’t given much, if any enrichment so it would make sense that after 30 years of living in barren cages, a toy or a blanket would seem a bit foreign to her. When we discovered her love of troll dolls, her distaste for other toys faded some, but she would still toss aside a blanket that was in her way and preferred to sleep on the concrete floor. It’s only been in the last year that we have witnessed her making rudimentary signs of nesting behavior with blankets. I haven’t seen her nest too much lately, but last night, after locking up the chimp area, Elizabeth and I were on our way out the door when we happened to look up and see Foxie laying in the loft playing and nesting with a small blanket. Perhaps she’s a closet nester?
Snowy snack
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012We got a few inches of fresh snow overnight, and despite the grumbling from the humans at the sanctuary (we’re ready for spring!), the chimpanzees were happy for a frosty snack. Here are a few photos that Jackie snapped this morning.
Burrito:
Missy hauled a big container of snow all the way upstairs:
Jamie and her ukulele
Monday, February 27th, 2012The chimps usually are not too interested in music (or any noise-making things in general) but today Jamie was really interested in playing this toy ukulele. She carried it around for most of the afternoon! She kept looking at it very up close, and my assumption is that she was trying to figure out how the noise was coming from the hole in the ukulele.
Mixed Media Art
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012Jamie likes to draw with pens and occasionally with crayons, but she’s not much of an artist with paint. She used to paint a lot when she first arrived at the sanctuary (we have some of her earlier pieces for sale in our store), but lately her focus has been more on eating the paint than actually creating something with it. However, volunteer Seana gave her some finger paint yesterday and she created quite the masterpieces!
