Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for April 2013

4th Annual Love a Chimpanzee Day

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Supporter Monica Best has taken sponsoring a day of sanctuary to a whole new level. Four years ago she declared April 23 Love a Chimpanzee Day and has sponsored the day every year since then. (Today also happens to be Monica’s birthday!) Love a Chimpanzee Day 2013 began with a breakfast of pears, strawberries, lemons, fruit smoothie, and peanuts (Negra’s favorite) in the greenhouse, followed by some adventures on Young’s Hill. After we cleaned the playroom we decked out the place in streamers and lots of fluffy blankets and watched Jody settle down into a nest.

I love to watch Jody nest. She first does a sweep of the area to collect any unclaimed blankets, then drags them all to her chosen spot. (Sometimes she grabs more than she can carry and drops some on the way.) Then she sits down and arranges the blankets into a fluffy throne around her. When she’s satisfied with her work, she gets to her feet and then dives headfirst into the nest, usually making what we affectionately call her “dinosaur noise,” a low moan of contentment. Jody doesn’t typically go out of her way to play with enrichment, but if there happens to be some near her nest she’ll inspect it lazily.

web Jody lie on back inspect troll playroom PR IMG_6867

web Jody lie on back inspect boot nest playroom PR IMG_6879

web Jody lie on back inspect boot nest playroom PR IMG_6878

web Jody lie on back inspect boot nest playroom PR IMG_6877

Once she’s settled, she stretches and wriggles from side to side until she’s totally content.

web Jody lie on back stretch blanket nest playroom PR IMG_6884

web Jody lie on back nest playroom PR IMG_6883

web Jody lie on back blanket nest playroom PR IMG_6871

web Jody lie on back blanket nest playroom PR IMG_6874

web Jody lie on back stretch playroom PR IMG_6896

web Jody lie on back stretch playroom PR IMG_6895

web Jody lie on back stretch blanket nest playroom PR IMG_6894

web Jody lie on back stretch blanket nest playroom PR IMG_6893

Thanks, Monica!

Negra gone wild

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It was perfect weather for chimpanzees here at the sanctuary this morning  (in Cle Elum, this means warm sun with no wind!) so we decided to put out a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill.  All of the chimps seemed more at ease and peaceful on the Hill today than I have ever seen them!  No one appeared to feel the need to keep an eye on where everyone else was and just went about peacefully foraging in their own direction.  Much to our surprise and delight Negra went further than I have seen her go yet!  She immediately headed for the far side of the Hill and promptly sat down to check out the neighbor’s horses.  I even saw her glance upward occasionally listening to the birds overhead.  And as if that weren’t enough, Negra continued to roam and explore even further, enjoying handfuls of grass along the way.  We were astounded and couldn’t stop taking photos!  I think even the other chimps were excited to see Negra venturing so far.  In the end it seemed to me that Negra had enough of all the paparazzi and promptly turned her back on everyone just to enjoy her adventure on her own.

web Negra walk grass YH IMG_6406

web Negra watch horses YH IMG_6472

web Negra sit in grass bamboo YH IMG_6426

web wild neggie YH bamboo negra IMG_6476

web Negra eat grape YH bamboo IMG_6450

I think Annie, Jody and Missy were as much in awe of Negra as we were!

web annie jody negra missy YH forage IMG_6494

Zen

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I found this picture on our camera taken yesterday and it made me smile so much! I think Annie is blinking, but it does look as if she’s meditating. Here’s your Sunday moment of zen from CSNW:

web annie ohm zen pose eye closed GH IMG_6346

web annie ohm zen pose GH IMG_6347

Missy

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I don’t think a day has gone by since I started working at CSNW in 2008 that I haven’t found myself completely charmed by Missy. She is full of contradictions – small but mighty, serious and goofy, independent and socially adept. Physically, she is petite and a little stocky with not much in the way of a neck. She has moments of extreme stillness and moments of explosive movement, and not much in between. When she’s still, she’s very still.

web Missy close up pensive greenhouse GH IMG_6068

web Missy sit pensive look down greenhouse GH IMG_6082

But when she’s ready to move, she goes from 0 to 60 in no time. Missy does not believe in warm-ups.

web Missy run feet off ground young's hill YH IMG_5513

Missy has a stellar sense of humor and a twinkle in her eye. She often looks just a second away from bursting into laughter or a raucous game of chase. I don’t know how all of that energy and spirit and humor survived thirty years in tiny laboratory cages. When I watch her sprint up and down Young’s Hill at lightning speed, I’m so happy that she finally has the space to be herself.

web Missy run chow bag hands feet off ground YH IMG_5719

Transformation

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Earlier this week, as volunteer Keri and I were finishing a walk around the hill with Jamie, we did some quick calculations to figure out just how far Jamie is walking each day. At a minimum, I think she is doing a mile a day just in walks with her caregivers – around an enclosure that rises 100 feet in elevation from end to end, no less. For a free-living chimpanzee, this wouldn’t be much, but for a chimpanzee who spent her life in a laboratory, it’s not bad at all.

web Jamie top of YH valley look at camera IMG_6137

The physical transformations that we’ve witnessed over the past five years have been incredible. After decades in tiny cages in a windowless basement, these seven chimps finally saw the sun, breathed fresh air, and got to run, climb, jump, and swing. Almost immediately, their skin darkened, their hair filled in, and their muscles grew stronger.

While most of these changes occurred over the first few months, we are still witnessing changes to this day. I think this is driven in part by their emotional recovery. This morning, as I watched Jamie run playfully after her friend Missy, I couldn’t help thinking about how much physical health and emotional health are intertwined. The stronger they get, the more they play and explore. And the more they play and explore, the stronger they get. I guess they call this a virtuous cycle.

web Jamie run YH IMG_6313

When I look back at photos from the chimps’ arrival in 2008, I hardly recognize them. Their bodies displayed the toll of so many years in the laboratory, but in their faces you could see the even greater damage that was done to their spirits. They looked sick, tired, scared, and beaten down:

web Jamie pale hairless 2008 IMG_1451

Five years in sanctuary can do a lot. Today, Jamie looks better in every imaginable way. And I’m sure she feels the same. Who knows what changes we’ll see in the next five years.

web Jamie sit log bridge beneath structure YH IMG_6302

Rock Stars and Getaways

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I sat down to write a blog post highlighting Out of the Box 2013 auction items, and quickly became overwhelmed! There are SO many amazing items! I decided to focus on two things – rock stars and getaways.

What auction, I ask you, can you bid on a guitar signed by a chimpanzee??

out of the box round logo

A couple of weeks ago, we sent out an e-newsletter and posted about the Green Day Tickets in our online auction. Those tickets went to the loveliest of families for $5,640. They had an awesome time at the concert in Berkeley on Tuesday – more on that later.

In addition to the tickets, Adrienne and Billie Joe Armstrong also donated a guitar signed by Green Day members.

green day guitar

 

But that’s not the only signed guitar in the auction – Jamie “signed” a mini guitar, and we had it framed in a shadow box along with a photo of the rock star herself. This is an item that will be available at our Seattle gala, so you’d better get your tickets now in order to bid on this one-of-a-kind conversation-starting art piece.

Here’s a photo of the guitar before it was framed:

Jamie guitar before framing

And now, for a couple of getaways –

How about a week on Grand Cayman Island? Jackie and Kevin Downey, friends of Don and Karen Young (as in Young’s Hill), generously donated a week’s stay in their condo on Seven Mile Beach! cayman sunset

Or an adventure in the Amazon? Volunteer Rozsika went to Peru last year to work on her master’s thesis and decided everyone should be able to experience the beauty of the jungle, so she managed to get this amazing trip donated for the auction.

peruvian sloth

Both of the above getaways will be available to our Seattle Out of the Box attendees. Did I mention you should get your tickets to this event asap?

For those who will be bidding online, perhaps you’ll be interested in four nights at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun or, for a more casual tropical retreat, bid on a week at The Beachouse in Fiji!

fiji swing

We even have a combination rock star and getaway item – a Recording Studio Vacation at a beautiful bed and breakfast  studio in Idaho! You can be your own creative genius for three days making an audio OR video project for private or commercial use, or bring your band to work on that first album!

recording studio

And all of that is only a small sampling of the auction items! Remember, online bidding opens May 4th and the Seattle event is that night. You can see which items will be available for bidding online by looking at the items as a full list or by sorting by category – the ones that are highlighted will be online; the ones not highlighted will be at the Seattle event.

All proceeds from the auctions will go towards the care of the chimpanzees and the sanctuary’s advocacy work. You can also donate directly to our very important fund-a-need, the veterinary clinic, right now.

Clinic 4-10-13

 

Burrito’s Charm

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Burrito is pretty irresistible. He also tends to be a bit shy at times. When he is feeling playful he will often initiate play with his caregivers by biting on a toy or a firehouse as he shyly looks in our direction. If he is feeling particularly playful he will add a foot stomp and a head nod in for good measure. One of my favorite moments is when I go out to the greenhouse to see what the chimps are up to and upon first sight, Burrito grabs something to bite on, stomps his foot at me and takes off running for a game of chase, laughing all the way.

web Burrito greenhouse GH IMG_5984

web Burrito hold bite hammers greenhosue GH IMG_6031

web Burrito profile greenhouse GH IMG_6010