Chimpanzees warm up for World Cup at Oakland Zoo

Chimpanzees at the Oakland Zoo were warming up on Friday (June 5) for the FIFA World Cup coming to the San Francisco Bay Area. Zookeepers at the institution are providing their prized primates with soccer-themed enrichment opportunities inside the chimp exhibit.

Flags and soccer stickers decorated the enclosure while inside, chimpanzees could forage through soccer-themed bags to find a mix of dried fruit, popcorn, and sunflower seeds, among other items in their diet. Zoo officials see it as an opportunity to celebrate the World Cup while also raising awareness about animal conservation.

The FIFA World Cup kicks off in co-host nation Mexico on June 11 while the first of six matches hosted in the Bay Area will begin on June 13.

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Transcript

Transcript

Transcript
You know. Although sports are kind of like a fun extracurricular activity, I think they are so important in terms of like culturally bringing people together. And so I think it’s really special that we can celebrate with the Bay Area and with our animals to kind of really recognize that we’re all about culture and bringing people together and talking about things that matter, such as animal conservation. Yeah. So it is a fun enrichment, but I did make sure that all of these items have some kind of a purpose as well. So they have lots of choice where enrichment today, things that I’ve made with their regular produce diet as well as some extra fun stuff, some hay forage mix, that’s some dried fruit, maybe some popcorn, some flower seeds. And so we’re just trying to encourage lots of movement. We will spread out the enrichment all over the exhibits. Umm, so we have some chimps who like to grab everything in a pile and then kind of sit and enjoy everything. So as long as we spread it out and give everyone a fair opportunity to participate in the enrichment. I think working with chimps and primates and apes in general is really special. They. Are so intelligent and I don’t mean that in a way that other animals are not intelligent, but they have a certain level of intelligence that it’s just really captivating and also really challenging to work with. I have to be very mindful of their what they are experiencing, what the troop is experiencing, and also what I’m bringing into that equation. And so it really feels like coming to work and working with my friends. Which I just think is really special. Just checking. You see? Look, look, look, look, look, look, look.