The Color Blue

By Jalil Goosby

Everyone in the world likely has their own favorite color. Be it red, green, or purple, there’s one color that everyone loves above all of the rest. In fact, a worldwide survey conducted in 2015 stated that blue happens to be the most popular color in 10 countries. One chimp at the sanctuary feels the same, because Jabari’s favorite also happens to be the color blue.

Jabari the Colorful Chimp

Jabari is a 20-year-old male, often characterized by his large size and even larger head. Caregivers at the sanctuary have affectionately given him the nickname, “football head.” Despite his large size, Jabari was initially hesitant to mingle with the other chimps in his villa. Over time, Jabari ended up gaining a lot of confidence thanks to interactions with his groupmates. Now, Jabari is quite the colorful chimpanzee, often recognized by his loud vocalizations around mealtimes.

Jabari’s Keys to a Good Time

When it comes to playtime, Jabari chooses to indulge in simple pleasures like KONG brand toys or really any toy that features rings or loops. He is also noted to have an affinity for anything that is the color blue. His favorite happens to be a Nylabone brand puppy teething key ring. The toy is made of a durable and chewy plastic, meant to withstand dogs and puppies of all sizes. The main ring, along with each key, is coated in a flavoring that entices dogs or in this case, a large chimpanzee, to keep chewing on them. Each key on the ring is colored differently, featuring a red, yellow and blue key.

Best of all, this set of keys is portable without being small enough to be a choking hazard to the chimps. Jabari seems to enjoy this aspect as well, as caregiver Alan Bergman states that “Jabari especially enjoys having toys that he can fit inside his mouth. He has a very large head that makes it easy to fit more in his mouth than other chimps might be able to.” The Nylabone keys fulfill that desire quite nicely.

Jabari’s Favorite Color

“His favorite key is the blue one, it’s always in his mouth. He just loves anything in the color blue,” says Alan, “Whenever his group gets new toys, we often try to save the blue ones for Jabari. We think Jabari really appreciates that.”

Jabari is never too far away from his set of keys, choosing to keep them either in his hands or in his mouth. “He usually carries them around with him whenever he’s out patrolling around the habitat. We think that he likes to show off his cool toys to the chimps in the other villas. It’s his way of being a bit of a show off and bragging.”

If you’d like to donate to help the many chimps at the sanctuary find their own ways to play, we invite you to visit our Amazon Wish List. Or visit the Ways to Give page on the Project Chimps website.