August 2009 Archives

Last Thursday, Christina and I finally had our enhanced enrichment day. After "Googling" party themes about a month ago, we decided on Fiesta Day. I'd been waiting to have my enrichment day for about 6 months, ever since I learned that I'd be coming for the summer as an apprentice. I wanted to work really hard and for the chimpanzees to really have something to do, so I had a goal of making papier-mâché cacti filled with many goodies. I thought that breaking open a papier-mâché anything filled with treats would be fun for anybody. Needless to say, making a papier-mâché cactus isn't the easiest art project I've came across. Constructing my cactus took several days, a lot of small cardboard scraps, and even more masking tape. After realizing what slow progress I was making, I decided on only one cactus, and a bunch of papier-mâché balloons. Balloons were a much simpler solution. I painted the cactus lime green with pink tissue paper flowers, and we painted the balloons with all sorts of fiesta type designs. We painted a few different posters and bought one of almost everything from the party section of the dollar store.

Thursday morning arrived, and it was time to set up. Well, after a month of preparing, I realized that we had significantly more things than I thought we would have. The room looked good though, like a fiesta should. There were tissue paper flower chains hanging from the shaky tree to the walls. We had chains with plastic chili peppers all over. Fiesta banners and posters were hung in every color. Decorated balloons were hanging on the shaky tree, tied to the platform, on top of the platform, and hanging on the fire hoses. We had a large cardboard Mexican-style pueblo with windows that opened up with treats hidden inside. There were small cardboard boxes that I'd wrapped completely in bright yellow duck tape with treats hidden inside. I'd try to make all the treats double or triple secured to make it a little more time consuming to get to the reward.

My cactus had been hung on the top of the shaky tree, which ended up hanging upside down because the top was heavier than the base, but that was okay; I was just glad that it turned out so well.

When the chimpanzees were let in to the play rooms for the day, they instantly went for the cardboard margarita glasses that Christina had filled with frozen fruit and ice. Loulis went first for the pueblo and ripped part of it off, but didn't find all the treats. They all got to have some balloons. I saw Loulis rip one of them in half. Tatu ripped one of the completely duct-taped boxes open with her teeth and easily got her treat out. Dar took his time unwrapping the single very long piece of duck tape that covered the entire box. It was funny to see Tatu just rip it open and Dar take his time.

No one was getting my cactus, which was the part that I really was looking forward to watching them interact with. So Kelly told Dar to look at the green plant in the shaky tree. It didn't seem to matter much to him, he looked pretty content sitting up on the shaky tree with some treats that he'd found previously. Finally, Tatu went up and ripped the top off the cactus, leaving more treats for later.

Overall, I was very happy with how our enhanced enrichment day went. It looked really good, and I think that the chimpanzees had a good time breaking into everything. They are a lot stronger than we are, and I don't think even layers of duck tape posed too much of a hassle, but they were entertained for part of the morning.

So today's the day, Luau Day. Laura and I have been planning our enhanced enrichment theme for a couple of weeks. We decided that our theme would be "Dar, Tatu, and Loulis's Rocking Luau Day," mainly because we found a lot of super great luau decorations at the dollar store, so we figured we could build on that. We also built a bunch of cardboard box tiki-men, which we made into food puzzles, and lots of folks pitched in to make some more great decorations.


However, the piece-de-la-resistance, or rather, the "Pig-de-la-Resistance," would have to be the huge sacrificial pink cardboard pig that we built to hide pineapple in, lovingly named "Pepto." A luau isn't a luau without a pig roast, right?

 

Needless to say, we spent quite a while decorating the East Room, but it was totally worth it because the place looked great! We positioned ourselves in the observation area so that we could film and take pictures of the chimpanzees when they entered the room. The chimpanzees seemed pretty excited to come in and explore, too, although each took a different strategy: Dar headed straight for the pig, plucked the juicy red apple out of the pig's mouth, and proceeded to amble over to a nice quiet spot to enjoy his apple uninterrupted. After he was done with that, he found a coconut and headed up to enjoy it in the shaky tree, and later was observed leisurely leafing through a copy of Reader's Digest, coconut in foot.

Tatu had a range of strategies: first, a reconnaissance sweep of the entire room, checking nooks and crannies, and then, straight to the pig, which she proceeded to partially disembowel in search of pineapple. We were so happy that our pig was popular!

Loulis, on the other hand, apparently decided that the smaller forages were more to his liking, at least initially, and went for the tiki boxes and the smaller pigs that were scattered around the room, all of which had pineapple in them.

Later, though, Loulis took the pig to task and beat the living stuffing out of it. Poor Pepto was almost unrecognizable. At that point, all the chimpanzees were bagged out, apparently worn out by the morning's luau-tastic activities.

All in all, we like to think Luau Day was a big success. The only downside, of course, is that I am signed up to clean this afternoon. The "funeral" for Pepto is scheduled for 5:00pm.

Tonight, while conducting hierarchy observations in the area where the chimpanzees come in for dinner, I experienced firsthand a lesson in chimpanzee gastronomy. A bit of background:

First of all, preparing dinner for the chimpanzees can turn into quite an event, with lots of careful planning and creativity going into some of the meals. It's a fair bet to say that the chimpanzees eat better than I do. And I know I speak for more people than just me when I say that it's not uncommon to covet the chimpanzees' dinners. Here's the thing though...you might think that the chimpanzees will like something, given that it has all of their favorite ingredients (read: veggies, etc), and with the added bonus of an artful and creative presentation, you'd think that certain fare would be a sure success with the diners. Au contraire. For example, within the past two weeks, among the things that have shown up on the menu have been: homemade veggie pate, created and slaved over by Emily; and a full-out vegetable and noodle lasagna. I was particularly covetous of that lasagna. However, both items were pretty much fully snubbed by all of the chimpanzees. Dar, upon receiving his bowl of lasagna, promptly turned it upside down and deposited it on the floor. Talk about insulting the chef.

So back to the story: today, I was observing while the chimpanzees were being served their dinner. Tonight's special was rice with veggies. Boy, was that ever a hit. Granted, I haven't observed many dinners, but of the ones I have seen, this was  by far the biggest blowout success. Tatu in particular was a true fan. She pounded down the first bowl, and then asked for, and received, a second, then a third, then a fourth helping. Then, apparently she wasn't getting service from the human caretakers fast enough, so she walked over to Dar and ever so casually swiped the bowl out of his hands, and walkd away, whereupon she continued finishing Dar's meal. Now you might say, aw, poor Dar! Well, don't feel too badly for him. Like the good-natured guy he is, he just walked over to where Tatu had abandoned her own still-half-full bowl, and polished off the rest of hers. But Tatu wasn't done. Then she asked for, and received, a 5th serving. Upon deciding she was done with that, she then walked over and swiped Loulis's bowl from him! In total, I definitely saw her go through 6 bowls of rice. Granted, she wasn't fully consuming all the contents of the bowls. Rather, she picked out her favorite things, but still, I've never seen her eat so much. And she wasn't finished. Upon finishing up the first course, what does she ask for but MILK. The girl is a bottomless pit!

Rick Wood, staff reporter for SCNews.com recently visited CHCI, and published an article about his visit on SCNews.com. Read the article here.

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