We set up a great forage in celebration of the 4th for the chimpanzees tonight. On the menu: large paper bags full of lettuce and cabbage leaves with a surprise baked apple hidden amongst the greens, and individual buckets with vegan hot dogs, corn on the cob, and watermelon. Diana
Shelly Knapp says
Oh they sound so happy in the video!! 🙂 🙂 Great new photo’s, too! Makes my 4th of July celebration better knowing what a great time they’re having!
Kim McAndrews says
What a beautiful celebration of FREEDOM!! Sparklers to all of you for making their first 4th of July a picnic. You rock!
Peace,
Kim Mc
patty clark says
Their first fourth of July in their new home, together with all of you wonderful people. What a beautiful time in all of our lives.
Thank you so much for being so “giving”.
Patty Clark
Paula says
What a wonderful 4th…they celebrate being free and in a way, they became citizens again when you rescued them…..a big thank you for your love and wisdom for these beautiful creatures….Paula
carlos valdivia says
I read a article about your chimps and I want to know if you could came to my school my school is called Mc Lure elementary .Burrito is a very cool name for a chimp if you can come to my school can I pet Burrito.Will you get a boy chimp for burrito to play with.dose Burrito ever roughouse with the girls chimps?My uncle lives in Cle Elum and he owns his own shop called Peoples custom Design & Detail his name Allan Peoples.I hope to hear more about the Cle Elum seven!
Carlos Valdivia.
Shelly Knapp says
Hi to Carlos Valdivia ~ just wanted to say that I think it’s very cool that you like the chimps! Where is McLure Elementary school? Ellensburg? Yakima? I’m sure Burrito is really happy that you especially like him. Hope someone from the Sanctuary can come to your school and tell everybody about the chimpanzee’s in Cle Elum!
Diana says
Hi Carlos! Thanks for posting to our blog. It’s really neat that you saw the Yakima Herald article and found our website! Here are answers to your questions:
We do not go into the chimpanzees’ rooms when they are in there. The films and photos you see on the blog and in the paper were taken by people who are on the other side of steel caging. Chimpanzees are very strong, and even when they play they can hurt humans. We’re very careful not to put ourselves into any dangerous places. For that reason, we also do not take the chimpanzees out of the their building.
We would like to come to your school in Yakima to tell your friends about the sanctuary – we could show them photos and video and tell stories about the chimpanzees. You can tell your teachers about the sanctuary and have them contact us.
We won’t be taking in any other chimpanzees in the near future. Maybe someday we will rescue another boy chimpanzee that Burrito will meet, but probably not for a while. We have our hands full with the Cle Elum Seven right now! It’s also very difficult to introduce chimpanzees to each other, especially boys (they tend to fight a lot), so we’d have to be really careful and make sure we thought they would get along first.
Burrito does rough-house with the girls. He runs around and makes himself look big and bangs on things, sometimes even hitting the girls (usually not very hard). The girls usually scream and run away from him when he does this. Burrito’s behavior is normal for a male chimpanzee – it’s called “displaying.” It’s his way of showing-off and saying, “this is my territory.”