Monday was a very good example of the age old sentiment "when it rains, it pours." I was able to get good interaction time in with Missy, Foxie, Burrito and Jamie. Jamie was surprisingly relaxed about me running around playing with other chimps, and no poop was thrown! Huzzah!
The enrichment theme of the day was "all forage day" meaning instead of serving the chimps their meals, we cut the food into smaller pieces, spread it out in a certain area, and then let them forage for what they can get. Similar, or as much as we can get, to foraging in equatorial Africa. Each chimp has their own way of foraging, different foods in a specific order, and its always fun to watch who goes for what.
In this video you can see Missy getting some cucumbers I put on the ledge of one of the doors.
Missy was feeling especially interested in the human caregivers yesterday, which is a little out of the ordinary. Missy is what you would call a "chimps chimp" meaning she would rather interact and play with her chimpanzee companions and not so much her human companions. When she is feeling interested in you, its always a treat! After lunch forage there were some plastic straws in the front rooms for the chimps to use to get food from in front of the doors. Missy handed me one, I assumed she wanted to reach the food next to me so I just told her she could reach it with the straw. She then handed me another straw, much to my shock, to play tug of war! Only a few seconds of tugging before Jamie came in, assuming we were after food, so Missy got out of there real quick. A few hours later Missy and I played a few rounds of chase, which is also the most tiring with Missy because she is the fastest chimp on the planet! By the time you get to where she is, she's already gone! Missy is slow to warm up to the humans at CSNW but we are making a relationship, slowly but surely!
(photo by CSNW)
Missy is often distinguished by her white patch on her face.
In this video: Jamie on tool use
Jamie and I only took one stroll around the hill yesterday. We did a good amount of hair brushing and I even attempted to make some art with her, but that didn't last long. I grabbed a piece of paper for each of us and a crayon for each of us and sat on the other side of the caging with the hopes that we would both draw on our papers. Not even a minute in, and Jamie ate the crayon. The running joke was I could come back tomorrow and pick up my drawing smeared on the wall. Jamie is on her own schedule, and was more interested in eating that crayon than drawing with it.
This video has a little more Jamie with tool use and Missy looking through the shopping bag, but its mostly for the sound. There is no better sound than chimps chomping on their food. <3 <3 Just sitting and listening is sometimes my favorite part of the day.
Below is Jody (left) and Annie (right) getting the cucumbers off of the door ledge.
Foxie and I also got a good 15 minutes of baby beating in. If you've ever checked out the CSNW blog, Foxie beating her babies is nothing new. She likes to create some beautiful soundtracks of the day with her babies and beating them against the caging, the walls, other enrichment, etc. Yesterday Fox gave me her babies and we played chase/musical babies on the walls and sinks and other things Foxie can't normally beat her babies on. She head nodded and danced along as we chimp laughed and continued baby beating and running around the playroom and front rooms. Foxie is getting more comfortable with me holding on to her babies for longer amounts of time. Sometimes she'll pass me a baby and immediately ask for it back, and sometimes she lets me run around and dance with her.
Just another wonderful Monday with the 7 most amazing chimps in Washington! :)
-b
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