Much of each day here at CSNW is spent cleaning. At 8:30 every morning, we invite the chimpanzees into the front rooms (four adjoining rooms adjacent to the playroom) for breakfast, and if everybody chooses to come in, staff and volunteers then enter the playroom and begin a thorough cleaning. The process usually takes about an hour and a half; during this time, the chimps occupy themselves in the front rooms by playing, nesting, or watching us clean (Jamie, especially, is always very interested in what we’re doing). Once we’re all finished and locked up, the chimps move to the playroom and we repeat the cleaning routine in the front rooms.
Here is a video of the daily playroom cleaning routine. It’s exhausting for sure, but it’s all part of providing a nice home for the Cle Elum Seven.
What an embarrassment of riches! Wonderful postings and photos and now this. Thnak you for sharing your routine with us!
Good job………….
It may be exhausting, it may be “dirty” but it is so rewarding to know the CE7 have a clean place to live.
I’m so glad to see the cleaning process, to get to see the whole upper level and to see the chimps from inside the playroom. Thanks for the different perspective, still learning new things all the time, even after 16 months, what a nice thing.
Thank you for allowing us to see another part of their day and to let us see them watching you and providing us some insight as to what happens on a daily basis at CSNW! And thank you for taking such good care them!!! My mother and I travelled to Ellensburg last Sunday so we stopped on the side of the road and stared in awe at the sanctuary (what little of it we could see) and were thrilled to be so close to the seven. Can’t wait to see the winter enclosure in place!
Good job Elizabeth, getting Jackie to be the “star” and you getting to do all the “heavy” filming!!!! Seriously, we all do appreciate the daily grind and how much love and time taking care of our precious friends entails.
Fantastic to see the cleaning routine, thanks for posting it.
I agree with what everyone says above .. great insight to all the haps!
thanks for always working so hard everyday everybody..
I loved the part where the gang gives their verbal & headnodding approval of the treats they’re about to receive..
thank you!
Hard work, yes. But I am sure very rewarding. I didn’t clean night houses at Chimp Eden but did go on fruit runs to sort through donated fruit, picked up orange peels and things in the enclosures after the chimps went in. It wasn’t hard work but it was rewarding just knowing it was done for the chimps. I would have been happy to clean up chimp poo if I had been asked to though. I even cracked many nuts to be given to them on tours as a snack. What I learned about cracking macadamia nuts is that the chimps were better at it than I was! They could get the nuts out quicker too.
Echoing everyone else’s heartfelt thanks at the exhausting but thorough work you do taking care of the 7. My own house never gets that clean! You all do amazing work and we (and the chimps too, I bet) love you for it!