Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for June 2012

Congratulations, Sharon!

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Sharon Discorfano has sponsored today to commemorate her graduation from law school at the University of Arizona.  While in school, Sharon served as Co-Director of her campus chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund.  After hearing CSNW’s own Sarah Baeckler and various other primatologists speak about the plight of chimpanzees, Sharon was inspired to write her substantial paper on laws regarding chimpanzees in research (check out a blog post she wrote based on her paper here).  After graduation, Sharon will be working in the field of animal law.  Sharon wants to thank Sarah, the other sanctuary staff, and the Cle Elum Seven for the inspiration, and we want to thank Sharon for sponsoring today for the chimps and for her continued work on behalf of all chimpanzees!

This photo of Negra worshipping the sun had a particular impact on Sharon (it’s one of my favorites, too):

 

The endless salad bowl

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One of the best things about the hill lately has been the fact that it’s an endless salad bowl of grass. Everyone has a favorite “harvest” spot, but lots of folks are discovering that Missy’s Mound has the best grass. Today I drove the gator around the hill and caught Missy getting some grass from there. As soon as she saw me, she grabbed a huge handful of grass and playfully ran inside. Once I parked the gator and walked in, I found Missy standing in the playroom with her mouthful of grass, and she playfully ran back out to the hill to get me to chase her.


Team Dora or Team Troll?

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Foxie’s new love of Dora the Explorer continues, but that doesn’t mean she’s dropped troll dolls out of her life.

 

She spent some time with a Dora and a troll doll and a mirror today:

Foxie hold mirror and troll doll

Foxie hold troll and dora

Foxie's hand and foot with Dora

Foxie's hand holding troll doll

 

A sure sign of Foxie’s contentment is when she rubs her toes together, like in the photo below and in this video from a couple of years ago. If you’re wondering what the powdery stuff on Foxie’s feet is – it’s pollen. The pollen has been blowing off the trees like snow all week!

Foxie toe-rubbing

Missy’s retreat to safety

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Missy had a little scare on the hill this morning. Sometimes the chimps get spooked and we don’t know what caused it. None of the other chimps seemed to care, so I doubt it was anything truly threatening. Plus, when it is a snake or some other potentially dangerous animal, the chimps tend to stick around and alarm call instead of high-tailing it for the greenhouse. If it’s a serious threat, I think they want to keep track of its whereabouts and alert everyone else to the danger.

It gives me goosebumps to see the chimps traveling up Young’s Hill as a troop. It’s like a little glimpse of what could have been if they had not been born into captivity or stolen from their families in the wild.

This video, by the way, shows Burrito walking to the log bridge at the top of the hill, which as far as I know is the farthest he’s ever been. He’s at the back of the line in the video – if we’re feeling generous, we might say that he is guarding the troop from the rear. In reality, at this point I think he’s happy to let the five girls ahead of him deal with any threats they might encounter along the way. But give him time – we see him get more confident each day out there.

Thank you, Barbara King!

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Barbara King has sponsored today in appreciation of the chimpanzees’ caregivers.  (Thank you, Barbara!)  We’re lucky to have a great team of staff and volunteers who provide direct care to the chimps every day.  It’s a demanding job, but I think we’d all agree that the rewards are infinite.  After all, we get to look at faces like this each day:

 

Thank you to Barbara and to all of our supporters who make our jobs that much easier!