Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for December 2008

Saturday Enrichment Party update

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Party planners Cindy and Jeani asked me to post this for ya’ll regarding the super fun enrichment party this Saturday. Make some gifts for the chimps and chat with your fellow chatters.

New Place: Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in Kirkland. On the corner of NE 124th St and 100Ave NE
New Time: 12:30 (need to be done by 3:30)

Questions? Contact: Jeani: [email protected] or Cindy: [email protected]

Address: 10021 NE 124th St, Kirkland, WA 98034 (425) 823-2727

Directions:
From the South:
Take 405 Northbound to the NE 124th St exit.
Stay in the left lane and take a left of the exit on to NE 124th.
Follow that to 100th NE Ave. The church is on your left on that street corner.

From the North:
ake 405 southbound to the NE 124th St exit.
Turn right off the exit on to NE 124th ST and stay on NE 124th until you come to 100th NE Ave.
Holy Spirit is on your left.

Park in the large lot and Jeani will be at the doors to show you the room.

One year ago…

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I was going through my photos last night and I found this picture taken on January 2, 2008.  When I opened it up, I my first thought was “thank goodness we don’t have any snow yet.”  But that thought was quickly replaced with an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.  For the past two days I have also had the honor of signing year end thank you cards for all of our 2008 donors and I am deeply humbled by the generosity of so many people. Looking at this picture and reading the hundreds and hundreds of names of people who have supported us, I am so acutely aware that without all of you we could not have gotten to where we are today!  So today I wanted to personally thank you all for being there for Burrito, Missy, Jamie, Negra, Jody, Foxie, and Annie.

Foxie adopts a small British boy

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For two days, Foxie abandoned her trolls for a new doll! We’ve been calling the doll (more of an action figure, really) the small British Boy. He is solid hard plastic, has a top hat, knickers and cloth vest. He’s actually a ring-bearer – he’s holding a pillow with a ring on it in his hand.

His legs and arms move, and the best part – he has eyelids that open and close. Foxie spent a lot of time “grooming” his eyes. She was smitten. She held on to him for at least two days straight. It was adorable. I haven’t worked at the chimp house in a few days, so I don’t know the fate of the British Boy. We’ll let you know. It was difficult to get photos because Foxie is always on the move, but here are a few.

Foxie climbing while holding the British Boy and a green monkey!

Shop Food Fight and Herbivore TODAY

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Hey everyone, to continue with our holiday shopping initiative, all of the businesses in Portland’s vegan mini-mall are giving a percentage of their proceeds today, all day. If you’re not in Portland, there’s still a chance to help out by shopping at Food Fight and Herbivore online. Food Fight Vegan Grocery has an amazing selection of vegan grocery products and miscellany. My favorites include Tings, Sjaak’s Organic Truffles, Sheese all the way from Scotland (I like the cheddars), Ener-G Egg Replacer for baking. Oh – Sarah recently made meringue cookies and “accidentally” made whipped cream out of the Meringue Cookie Mix – both were out-of-the-world good. They even have crazy stuff like vegan haggis and cavier. I think you get the point – Food Fight has some really great stuff for all people who like food.

Herbivore Clothing has awesome clothing and accessories and also many, many books. I love the Herbivore bunny, which they have on three different shirts.  They have really great barrettes, belts, luggage tags, necklaces, bags and wallets – including coin purses made by our friend Laura Bee! And the books – wow! Because I’m so focused on food – I’ll recommend a couple of my favorite cookbooks: Buddha’s Table (Thai food!), Veganomicon (the best all-around cookbook there is), and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. There are lots more, a few that I will now purchase since part of the money will go to our chimpanzee friends.

Happy Shopping 🙂

Chimps enjoy a slide show, and so will you soon!

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Kathy C., who you may recall recently donated a new telephoto camera lens, is working on a photo slide show of the Cle Elum Seven. The slideshow is set to music and has LOTS of photos. We’ll have it for sale in our store once it is ready and we’ve made copies!! Kathy gave us a preview and we were so excited, we decided we should show it to the chimps themselves to see what they thought. They loved it!

We did not receive an money from Apple for this promotion of their laptop – maybe we should think about that…

Burrito watching slide show

Jamie watching slide show

Foxie and Jamie watching slide show. Foxie has a big paper wadge in her mouth – wadging is a natural behavior sort of like dipping tobacco without the chemicals and addiction. Chimps in the wild wadge with leaves. In captivity they use various things. Jamie, of course, is wearing a scarf.

Negra watching the show from the comfort of her bed.

Foxie’s Left Hook

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Ever wonder why we don’t go in with the chimps? There are many reasons, but here’s one you might not have thought about: Chimps play rough. Even when they aren’t being aggressive, chimpanzees have the ability to inflict serious damage on us humans. We just aren’t built for their style of play (I get a headache just watching them).

Make sure you have your volume turned up when you view this clip so you can hear all of the slaps and punches (and laughter!)…

Negra and nuts

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I think we’ve mentioned a few times on the blog how much Negra enjoys nuts. We frequently scatter nuts in the outdoor area on warm days or the playroom if it’s a bit colder so when the chimpanzees go into that area after we are finished cleaning, they spend fifteen to twenty minutes foraging. Burrito is particularly good at finding food in the straw and really seems to enjoy looking. This time of year is great because nuts in the shell are easy to find, and this adds more for the chimpanzees to do – they have to crack the nuts to get to the meat inside (they use their teeth). Negra squeeks with anticipation as soon as she sees us bringing out the nuts for scattering. Here are a couple of photos of Negra taken just the other day as she was gathering and eating nuts in the outdoor area.

Disclaimer: This post is a bit of a set up. Denice has shopped around for the best deals on nuts and will let you know about what she’s found in case you want to give some mixed nuts in the shell for the chimps for the holidays. Nuts in the shell can last up to two years if frozen and a year in the fridge, so we can follow the lead of the squirrels and stock up now!