Annie’s birthday is Saturday, so I thought I’d share a picture taken from when the raceway to Young’s Hill was built:
When I first met the Cle Elum Seven in 2008, I was working at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Ellensburg, just 20 miles away from CSNW. I was going to grad school studying the chimps’ use of sign language (which coincidentally, all of the CSNW staff members did before me as well).
I remember when I first saw Annie, I immediately thought she looked like Washoe.
Washoe and Annie were both captured from Africa. Washoe originally was captured for NASA to be a space chimp, but she was too big and so she ended up in Reno, NV where she learned sign language. Washoe lived in a couple different places across two decades before she was given sanctuary at CHCI, but thankfully she was never used in invasive biomedical research. She was much luckier than Annie, who was taken from Africa and put straight into invasive research.
Regardless of their backgrounds, captivity is never ideal for a chimpanzee. We can’t ever make up for the amount of space they would normally have in the wild, but with the opening of Young’s Hill, Annie will have more space to roam than ever before since leaving Africa.
Annie does resemble Washoe. I loved Dr. Fouts book and his relationship with Washoe was a pleasure to read. She was quite a chimp. She was beautiful and elegant just like our Annie is. I am so looking forward to the moment when we see the Cle Elum 7 on Young’s Hill. It will be a tearful celebration of joy! I also wanted to tell you Debbie that I read the blog on CHCI’s website and recognized your name when you became involved with CSNW. I enjoyed your blog entries very much.
Thanks, Theresa. I was at CHCI for about 6 years, and always enjoyed writing blog entries — I’m glad you enjoyed reading them! I hope you like my CSNW entries, too 🙂
I can’t wait for Annie and the rest of the Cle Elum Seven to get to run free on Young’s Hill, either! It will definitely be an emotional and yet fun day. We’re all looking forward to it!
what a gorgeous pic of Annie. I love watching her and Missy play and chase each other.
It will be an amazing site to see when they have two acres to play chase!
oh my yes! I can’t wait to see them playing chase all over the place when they are released and you make videos!
Oh my gosh,,,,I just looked a the photos of Washoe and the lower part of their faces are almost identical, especially the lines of their lips, or should I say the outline of their mouths? Do you think??????
I’m interested in learning what their possible reactions might be to the wide open outdoor spaces that they will encounter, are you anticipating any anxiety from them and how will you deal with it? i’ve read how many of the chimps released in Florida at the sanctuary there have some pretty stressful reactions to natural spaces, any ideas you can share with us on how it might go?
J.B. might be better at answering this, but the short answer is: yes, we have thought about how it’s possible some of the chimps may be timid about stepping foot out into such a large and open space. There’s really no way for us to predict how they might respond, for all we know they may all run out without any hesitation! But we did just install a firehose “railing” which serves as a guide from the raceway door to the closest platform on Young’s Hill, just in case some of the chimps might be hesitant to step out to something potentially intimidating. They’ve used a similar structure at Save the Chimps for when the chimps first step out on to one of their very expansive islands.
its fascinating how chimps in captivity all over the world lok so similar having more than likely been captured from the same regions of africa , i remember the days when i thought all chimps looked the same !