Chimp Haven Life Hacks

Working with chimps is a tricky job, but along the way the chimps will teach you plenty of tricks to help make your job (of giving them treats) easier.

Pocket Peanut
It’s an obvious one, but you learn right away that all’s fair in love of food. One of the biggest hurdles of being a lower ranking chimp is that getting your daily banana isn’t so straightforward. So for us with low ranker chimp friends, having a pocket snack is the way to go. Whether it’s a banana, peanut, fruit gummies, or carrot, sometimes the illusion of being empty handed is the easiest way to hand off the goods.

Rendezvous
Every chimp’s home has a few hidey holes, corners where the rest of the group can’t see some chimpie easily or there’s a convenient barrel to stand next to. Some of the lowest ranking chimps are the cleverest and will walk new people to these secret spots where it’s the perfect place to get an extra snack and no one else will be the wiser.

Play It Off
For a lot of our chimps playing is their favorite thing in the world. Whether it’s with another chimp or a caretaker, they will drop anything to come bounce and laugh. For some of our big boys, they can be convinced to keep their hands off a friend’s snack with a couple stomps. You learn who your playful boys are by watching the group. When things get tense, our fun loving kids will get right up in a big, fluffy boy’s face and start bobbing their head, and suddenly the whole situation diffuses. Stomping has been the saving grace of many caretakers.

Bait and Switch
Some of the tricks of the trade aren’t even handled by caretakers. Chimpanzees are deviously clever of their own accord. One of the best tricks some of our chimp geniuses have shown off is peeling their banana along the side (not from the top like us) and the result is a very convincing whole banana. They drop this empty skin when they see the alpha eyeing their snack and nine times out of ten this gives them the exact amount of time to run off with the actual banana and eat while the alpha is left opening an empty skin.

Sharing is Caring
Often there’s just no getting around having a swarm of begging chimp faces and only having one piece of food. When the chimp who was intended to get that snack isn’t high ranking enough to shrug off the competition one of the nicest things about chimpanzees is that they can and will share. More often than not everyone is perfectly happy with having just a little bite of a treat and then let the majority of the banana go to the intended chimp. Sometimes the receiving chimp will even break off a piece to share with a friend giving them a pouty lip. Granted sometimes they know behind those big begging eyes is a tantrum waiting to happen. Better to give Maxi a piece of your banana now before she starts crying and rolling around on the ground.

Rizzo Farrow

Behavior Specialist