bird meat day

i think of washoe every thanksgiving, and today i will tell you the story of why washoe and i call it "bird meat day"

10 years ago (give or take) my friend lora and i drove to ellensburg to visit CHCI (The Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute), which is where washoe and her posse of sign language speaking chimpanzees live. i have a handful of stories that i will never forget from this little adventure (one of them includes washoe telling me she liked my shoes) but this story is about bird meat day.

apparently the the humans that work at CHCI like to celebrate the holidays with the chimps. they get cake and gifts on their birthdays, candy on halloween, turkey on thanksgiving, more gifts on christmas and so on and so forth.

after they had done this for a year or two they realized that the chimps were learning the pattern and starting to anticipate the next holiday. one year after they got candy and everyone was dressed up in costumes washoe invented a sign which translated to "bird meat" and asked about "bird meat day", which she knew was the next celebration after candy and costumes.

i was completely tickled by the idea of bird meat day
and i have called it that ever since
i hope y'all have a wonderful bird meat day, stuff yourselves and enjoy!