I was in the kitchen yesterday preparing the chimps’ lunch when I heard lots of laughter echoing throughout the playroom. When I went in to check it out, I was bombarded by simultaneous silliness, but not with your usual cast of characters…
Posts Tagged ‘Animal Welfare’
Simultaneous silliness
Thursday, February 9th, 2012Foxie in the window
Monday, February 6th, 2012Boot love
Sunday, February 5th, 2012Jamie has an intense love for boots, especially new ones. She’s been carrying around the boots Candy sent since the minute she got them (a week ago today). I think she enjoys having lots of boots, but to her, there is nothing quite like a new pair of boots. Her other boots, even her favorites, get pushed aside when a new pair comes along. I guess that’s probably true for me too.
In the following photo, Jamie’s actually just yawning, but I love how it looks like she’s wearing a huge playface!
Kickin’ and Clickin’ Country-Western Dance
Monday, January 30th, 2012Yesterday, Jackie and I put out a party with “Texas in a box” sent from Candy C. She also sent a DVD with line dancing for us to show the chimps. We thought Negra would like to see the dancing, so Jackie went to set up the TV so they could watch from the front rooms. We had come technical difficulties so instead decided to just do a video search on my iPad and show the videos to the chimps that way! Negra, Jamie, Foxie, and Burrito all showed interest. Jamie especially liked the boots the dancers were wearing. Thanks again Candy for sending us fun enrichment!
Enriching Negra
Thursday, January 26th, 2012Negra doesn’t hang out with her human friends all too often, so when she’s in the mood to play (or to even just sit next to you), it’s a real treat. Lately, however I think she has been more interactive than usual, both with her human caregivers and with the other chimps. This morning while we were cleaning the playroom, I caught her casually spying on me through a mirror. At first I just greeted her with a head nod and she enthusiastically head nodded back, so I started dancing for her (Negra loves it when her caregivers dance and often bobs her head and moves with us a bit when we do). I think she was definitely enriched.
Slurp, slurp, slurp
Monday, January 23rd, 2012Yesterday Jackie and I set up a great enrichment project for the chimps. We filled buckets with some snow and added a little juice for flavor, and then we put the buckets outside the caging and gave the chimps straws to use as tools. Everyone had their own way of trying to get the most out of the buckets. Eventually all the snow completely melted and the buckets were dry, but we certainly found a way for this project to last longer than just juice in buckets.
Happy Birthday to Doreen and Donna Hughes!
Monday, January 23rd, 2012Donna Hughes sponsored today in celebration of her and her twin sister Doreen’s birthday. Doreen and Donna have been enthusiastic supporters of the chimpanzees since early on, and while they love all of the Cle Elum Seven, they have a special fondness for Foxie. They currently sponsor her through our Chimpanzee Pal program, and they even have their own troll doll collection!
Here’s Foxie with part of her collection:
We hope you have a joyous birthday, Doreen and Donna!
A cold snack
Sunday, January 22nd, 2012I know we’ve had a lot of posts about the snow lately, but I just couldn’t resist posting this adorable video from yesterday.
Jamie as chimpanzee
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012Jamie has always been the most human-like of the Cle Elum Seven. She often does human-like things (files her nails, ties shoelaces, sews); she’s always very interested in any cleaning, maintenance, or construction the humans around her might be doing; and sometimes she even seems to prefer the company of her human caregivers to that of the other chimpanzees. None of this is unusual for a chimpanzee who has grown up in a captive situation.
But on Young’s Hill, Jamie is all chimpanzee. Something about the wide open spaces or the natural surroundings seems to bring out a different side of her.
Chasing deer:
Hunting squirrels:
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Fishing for treats on the treat rock:
Leading her friends on a walk:
Blanket fort fun
Monday, January 16th, 2012This morning we put a bunch of barrels together and made a blanket fort, with all the toys inside of the fort. Not surprisingly, Jamie was interested in checking things out.
