July 2009 Archives

We decided that last Monday would be a good day for an upside-down picnic-- a spread of food which could be found by looking up, rather than strewn about on the ground human-style. Since free-living chimpanzees must use their ingenuity to gather their daily meals, it is common for caregivers at CHCI to include an element of foraging in the chimpanzees' daily enrichment. This encourages the chimpanzees to interact with their environment and to use their problem-solving skills to procure those hard-to-reach treats.

 

This was the goal of Upside-Down Picnic Day--to have a theme day revolve around the idea of searching, finding, and figuring out how to get at the dried fruits (a favorite snack) hidden inside a variety of containers and contraptions. To turn this puzzling picnic upside down, we hung the containers from curtains of torn sheets around the outdoor enclosure so that the chimpanzees would have to climb and reach for the prize, like they would if foraging for fruit in a forest environment.

 

Some of the containers consisted of:

    * A variety of plastic boxes, bottles, and other containers requiring different techniques to open (an alternative strategy would be to rip the container open)
    * Odd shapes of taped-together paper towel and toilet paper rolls which required shaking in a particular way for the fruit to come out (alternative strategy: rip it open)
    * Small paper rolls containing fruit tied to yarn. Pull the yarn to get the fruit. (alternative strategy...)
    * A narrow-mouthed bottle filled with large pieces of re-hydrated fruit, with a plastic hook included to "fish" it out.
    * Containers in containers

 

Setting up for the picnic was a team effort, taking five people about 45 minutes to stash and hang the containers, in addition to the chimpanzees' regular daily enrichment items. However, the time spent was well worth it, as Tatu, Dar and Loulis seemed immediately interested in the picnic, each one picking a different direction and individually working on the foraging challenge of their chosen area. Dar quickly found a treasure trove of ants-on-a-stick (raisins on spaghetti) and a plastic container with dried fruit stashed in shredded paper. He took these over to a favorite spot on the upper ledge, and we saw a contented face as he enjoyed the spoils. Loulis, at first beginning to display towards we humans in the observation area, became suddenly distracted by a paper roll suction-cupped to the observation window and from then on seemed to forget what he was displaying about. The adventurous Tatu, however, probably got the largest share of treats--she seemed to barely stop moving as she walked, climbed and swung around most of the enclosure, cleaning out container after container as she went.

 

Although it seemed that the chimpanzees often chose the alternative strategy for opening the contraptions and containers (ripping apart even the hardest plastic!), we saw some containers being opened the "human" way, and saw Tatu successfully shaking fruit out of the paper towel rolls as well as pulling the yarn on the yarn rolls. At the end of the day, we were assured by those that cleaned the outdoor enclosure that not a container went unopened, meaning Dar, Tatu and Loulis were certainly very busy at the Upside-Down Picnic!

The summer apprentices have descended upon the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute once again, and the past few weeks have been a tempest of work, training, and research. In the afternoons the whole building transforms into a swarming mass of people, working on projects and data collection. In the slow hours of the afternoon routine, there is no television that isn't playing archive videos for data collection, no computer that doesn't have someone entering data into spreadsheets.

But data collection isn't all that's been getting done with all the new helping hands. The enrichment room has finally been organized, the berm garden is looking lush and beautiful, and the morning routine gets completed in record time.

Thank you to all of the 2009 apprentices for your dedication and hard work!

Loulis's Birthday and Mother's Day were on May 10th this year. However, since that fell on a weekend, they were celebrated on May 11th. The East Play Room was decorated in fashion for both, and a little extra. Signs adorned the walls with "Happy Birthday" and "Happy Mother's Day," while streamers hung from one structure to another covering the room. There were also some hanging decorations that gave a nice "Hawaiian" feel to the party with large flowers, tiki faces, and pineapples.

A great forage consisted of raisins, sunflower seeds, cereal bars, pretzel sticks, and minute maid apple juice boxes. Tatu and Dar went straight for the pretzels while Lou found the juice boxes and raisins. Dar was quick to collect as many pretzel sticks and raisin boxes as possible, carrying them around in both his hands and his mouth to the point of bursting out. At one point, Lou spotted a juice box sitting atop a sheet hung over one of the rungs on the wall. As he approached it Tatu also noticed it and made a straight go for it. She started climbing, and was just about reached it, when Loulis sat underneath it and pulled on the sheet. Down came the juice box, Loulis had succeeded.

For the most part it was a relatively low arousal party with everyone enjoying their forage. Food squeaks filled the enclosures for quite some time during the morning hours, and heard once again later for dinner. One of Lou's favorite meals was served for dinner, rice, this time with canned peaches and fruit cocktail. An after dinner favorite for all the chimpanzees was surprise ice-cream cones. 

Editor's Note: Every day at CHCI we put out a wide variety of enrichment items for the chimpanzees, usually based around some theme. Here are the themes from the 30 days of June 2009.