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Archives for May 2013

Buy photos of the chimpanzees

May 31, 2013 by Diana

The photo of Annie on the blog the other day was so popular I decided to resurrect our SmugMug account where people can purchase photos. I’ve added just a few photos so far. You can get prints, prints on canvas, and select merchandise from the store with the images you choose. Take a look here.

If there are specific photos you’d like to purchase that you’ve seen on the blog or website, send me the link to the photo by email ([email protected]), and I’ll try to make them available too!

Here are a few of the photos on the site now:

Foxie:

web Foxie kiss new troll doll enrichment outdoor area IMG_3409

 

Negra:

5-22-09-negra-grass

Jamie:

ED sm Jamie good_MG_9849 copy

Filed Under: Foxie, Jamie, Negra, Sanctuary Tagged With: buy, chimp, chimpanzee, csnw, northwest, photography, photos, Sanctuary, smugmug

We’re Looking for a Development Manager

May 31, 2013 by Diana

Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is hiring! We are looking for someone with fundraising experience to fill the brand new position of Manager of Development.

We are so excited to be expanding our staff with this very important role. Get all of the details on our Job Opportunities page or download the position description in pdf format here. If you have questions after looking over that material, email Jennifer.

Please share widely!

Jamie is looking forward to another staff member to boss around:

Jamie close up

 

Filed Under: Fundraising, News Tagged With: chimp, chimpanzee, csnw, development, Fundraising, job opening, manager, northwest, nw, Sanctuary

Behind the scenes

May 30, 2013 by Debbie

Understandably, the stars of the sanctuary are the Cle Elum Seven and obviously they are the center of our blog posts. Often though, we have lots of people ask about what the caregivers do “behind-the-scenes.” Long ago we did a post on how we clean and also on the morning routine, as well as how we serve the chimpanzees. Here’s a photo essay of sorts with all the details of an average chimp house day:

Breakfast prep:

web caregiver debbie stir smoothie (ek) IMG_2080

web breakfast smoothie grapefruit pear peanuts vitamins (dm) IMG_2082

Once breakfast is prepped, we serve a little bit to the chimps to shift them out of the greenhouse, and then we enter that area to clean. Once the greenhouse is clean, we lock up and invite them back out to the greenhouse and Young’s Hill to have the rest of their breakfast and unlock the playroom to clean. Here’s volunteer Becca in the greenhouse:

web becca volunteer clean GH (ek) IMG_2084

Cleaning the playroom:

web caregiver debbie clean scrub PR (ek) IMG_2089

web becca volunteer clean PR (ek) IMG_2090

After playroom cleaning, we shift the chimps once again so we can clean the front rooms. Before shifting any doors, we first check locks on the rooms we just cleaned, and operate the pneumatic doors remotely using levers that move the doors with air pressure.

web caregiver debbie check locks FRs (ek) IMG_2093

web caregiver debbie move doors (ek) IMG_2099

In the afternoon, we work on prepping things for the chimps both that evening and the next day. We put together enrichment for the following morning, make night bags for after dinner, and prepare an evening enrichment project for the chimps too. In between all those daily tasks, we’re also continuing to do laundry, wash dishes, and other chores.

Volunteers Jen and Matt workin’ hard on folding some laundry…

web jen matt volunteers fold blanket laundry (dm) IMG_2104

… and hardly workin’ 🙂

web jen matt volunteers silly blanket laundry (dm) IMG_2103

Tomorrow’s enrichment theme is “travel/tourist day” and Jen and Matt had some fun finding perfect things from our enrichment shed:

web jen volunteer enrichment silly (dm) IMG_2113

Tonight’s evening enrichment project is PVC tubes filled with some peanut butter and a few raisins:

web jen matt vounteers make evening enrichment PVC tubes peanut butter raisins (dm) IMG_2106

The chimps will love it! Jamie was checking in on Matt and Jen’s work. She was also patiently waiting for JB to put on some boots and run around the hill with her.

web jamie at PR doors (dm) IMG_2101

I caught him with the socks he came to work wearing today:

web caregiver jb chimp sock wear boot IMG_2115

Just kidding! That’s a chimp sock. 🙂

For dinner tonight we served peaches, lemons, lettuce, and onions, which Katelyn served:

web katelyn serve jamie GH (dm's phone)

And finally, in case you’re curious about where all the blog magic happens, here’s me getting ready for today’s post:

web caregiver debbie write blog post IMG_2112

 

Filed Under: Boots, Caregivers, Enrichment, Food, Jamie, Sanctuary, Volunteers

Annie tries new things

May 29, 2013 by Lisa

As the newest staff member I am enjoying many new responsibilities. The one that is, perhaps, the most fun is coming to know the chimpanzees better and developing my relationships with them. During my very first volunteer shift I remember being drawn to Annie. Elizabeth described her to me as shy and reserved, especially with the human caregivers. She reminded me of another chimpanzee friend in that regard. Over the years as a volunteer I have had the privilege to watch as she slowly comes out of her shell and I can’t tell you how lucky I always feel when Annie takes the time to greet me or play with me, however briefly. I enjoy coming to know her for herself as she figures out who that is in sanctuary. She’s always surprising us with her changing tastes; today, we caught her on film playing with one of Foxie’s Dora dolls.

web Annie hold dora greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8742

web Annie close up inspect dora greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8739

web Annie hold bite dora greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8752

web Annie hold bite dora greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8744

web Annie hold bite Dora greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8741

web Annie close up look at camera greenhouse GH (ek) IMG_8737

Filed Under: Annie, Enrichment, Sanctuary Tagged With: Annie, chimp enrichment, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, Cle Elum 7, Cle Elum Seven, csnw

What a difference a day makes

May 28, 2013 by Katelyn

We have been having many days of much needed, but seemingly never ending, rain here at the sanctuary.  And let me tell you, Jamie has had a bee in her bonnet for days.  And when Jamie’s not happy she makes it well known.  I can’t really blame her as it’s hard to be stuck inside after we have had so many beautiful days recently.  As caregivers, it is always first in our minds as to how we can make the days better for the chimps, particularly when they aren’t able to go outside.  Yesterday, despite our best efforts, Jamie was a grouchy lady and let it be known in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with any of our suggestions.  But today the humans and chimpanzees finally awoke to sunny skies.  Everyone was in a good mood and JB even got a laugh from Annie, who typically reserves those for her raucous games of chase with her best friend, Missy.  We put a breakfast forage on Young’s Hill to make the most of the day and the chimps were all lined up waiting for the door to open.  They immediately all filed through the raceway together with Negra (!) in the lead. Everyone spread out, foraging through the now significantly taller grass, food squeaking with joy (we are hoping to have some great footage of this from the GoPro camera on the hill soon).  And then much to our surprise, we spotted Jamie trying her hand at tightrope walking across the fire hose bridge!  While this is usually a classic Missy move, I’d say Jamie is giving her a run for her money.  And the best thing yet? That bee that’s been in Jamie’s bonnet seems to have flown off.

web Jamie tightrope firehose yh I IMG_8613

web Jamie tightrope firehose yh II IMG_8614

web Jamie tightrope firehose yh III IMG_8615

web Jamie tightrope firehose yh IV IMG_8616

I love Jamie’s face in this last picture.  It almost looks as though she’s giving herself a little congratulatory cheer.  I would look like that as well if I had just been able to do a tightrope walk across the fire hose bridge!

web Jamie tightrope firehose yh V IMG_8623

Filed Under: Annie, Caregivers, Chimpanzee Behavior, Enrichment, Food, Jamie, Negra, Sanctuary, Young's Hill Tagged With: Annie, chimp enrichment, chimp sanctuary, chimpanzee rescue, chimpanzee retirement, chimpanzee sanctuary, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, Cle Elum 7, csnw, Enrichment, Jamie, Negra, Sanctuary, young's hill

thanks and reflections

May 27, 2013 by Diana

I’m going to open this post with a photo of beautiful Annie that I just took:

annie portrait fr4 2

It’s a rainy day at the sanctuary and the chimpanzees have been pretty low-key. Katelyn entertained a few folks in the green house with the iPad this afternoon while Jamie decided to take a nap with some boots. In the photo above, Annie had just come in to the front rooms and sat down on the bench. She looked so incredibly beautiful, I had to ask her if it was okay if I took a photo or two. She obliged.

We are nearing the fifth anniversary of the chimpanzees’ arrival to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Some of the very first photos that we shared of the chimps were of them at the same spot Annie was sitting in today, looking out the window just to the right of Annie and the source of the great lighting for the photo (despite the rain). Anniversaries always bring about a good bit of reflection – thinking of the past and how far the sanctuary and the chimps have come over the last few years. Appropriately, Annie strikes me as the most reflective of the Cle Elum Seven – the look in her eyes in the photo above reinforces that impression.

This past weekend volunteer Katie, J.B. and I staffed a table at Vegan Vida Con in Portland, OR. The conference was geared towards vegan bloggers and was sold out. They chose the sanctuary to receive proceeds from the silent auction at their Galarama on Saturday. The Galarama silent auction was terrific and they raised $4,000 for the chimpanzees!! We are beyond thrilled and grateful.

Seeing so many people at the conference caused me to do some more reflection.

It was in 1997, when I was living in Portland, that I made two big decisions – I decided to stop eating meat and I decided to follow my interest in great apes. I had always been what people call an “animal lover,” but before 1997, I hadn’t really thought about all of the issues facing these animals that I loved. The next year, I entered a master’s program at Central Washington University in Ellensburg and began working at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI). It was physically the closest I had ever been to any primates other than humans, and I knew right away my life would never be the same. I thought more and more about the uneven and often brutal relationships that humans have with other animals. In 1999, J.B. entered the same program. We quickly became friends, and, with one conversation about the egg and dairy industries, he convinced me to become vegan.

J.B. and I were, naturally, always looking for new vegan food to try. One day we found a cheese substitute in the health food store in Ellensburg. It was a powder that you added oil to, creating what I can only guess was supposed to be a cheese spread. It was possibly the most vile thing I have ever eaten in my life.

Fast forward to 2013, and here J.B. and I were at a conference full of vegans and full of amazing vegan food. The Galarama not only featured a So Delicious non-diary ice cream sundae bar, but also plates of delicious and quickly devoured vegan cheese made by Artisan Vegan Cheese author Miyoko Schinner. I never would have predicted that conference or Miyoko’s cheese while I was desperately trying to get the taste of the oily, powdered vegan cheese disaster out of my mouth.

And I never would have predicted that 15 years later I would be just up the road from CHCI taking care of seven chimpanzees released from a private biomedical laboratory.

And I never would have predicted that the United States would be on the threshold of a decision that could mean the end of the use of chimpanzees in biomedical testing in the United States (just fyi if you go to that link – the time for public comments has expired, and we are now awaiting the official decision from the NIH).

I wrote down a few words for the attendees at the Galarama on Saturday. It was a super fun party, so it wasn’t really the venue for making heartfelt speeches, but I saved what I scribbled down, just in case there was an appropriate moment. I won’t type out everything, but the main gist of it was that each and every day is a gift to see the chimpanzees exploring new things about their environment and learning new things about themselves at the sanctuary. I’m amazed at how much they’ve changed and grown. And the only thing that comes close to seeing their transformations is to share their stories and daily lives with other people.

Thank you Michele, Janessa, and Jess of Vida Vegan Con for giving us the opportunity to not only help raise needed funds for the sanctuary, but for allowing us to introduce some new awesome people to the chimpanzees.

Filed Under: Annie, Events, Fundraising, Sanctuary, Thanks

Along the Bushmeat Highway: Part 3

May 26, 2013 by Debbie

This is the third installment of a series of posts from Dr. Cleve Hicks. Cleve did his PhD research in the DRC studying chimps in the Bili Forest. Read Part 1 of this story and Part 2 first! (To add some context to the story, look at the map of the “Bushmeat Highway” here).

—

Our stay in Titule was prolonged an extra day due to an illness suffered by one of our Ecoguards. Fortunately we were able to sleep at the house of my old friend Chief Mangay of Lebo. Upon departing from Titule, we veered north towards Bili, crossing the mighty Uele River on pirogues. Villagers on the south bank of the Uele proudly showed us a large eagle they had captured from its nest. On the north bank of the river, we left behind the continuous cover of forest to the south and entered into savannah / forest mosaic territory. This road was, as it had been in 2006, much less heavily trafficked than the roads to the south of the Uele. Not only did we see no monkey or duiker carcasses or monkey orphans, but just to the north of the Uele we got of first glimpse of free-living monkeys in the trees above the road: a black and white colobus and a bit further along a tree-full of chittering red-tailed guenons. Lukuru researchers Ephrem Mpaka and Gilbert Paluku had noticed the same pattern (no monkey or duiker meat) on their trip from Buta to Bili two days earlier. This was encouraging, but there were also signs that times and circumstances were changing. In the north bank riverside town of Lisala, as we stopped to snack on binyes (simple concoctions of flour, sugar, and palm oil), we were confronted with a bustling herd of long-horned cattle, about 15 in number, munching on bamboo and riverside herbs. They were being herded by local Congolese, whom we were told had recently bought them from Mbororo herders to the north. We watched the bovines munch their way through the roadside forest and the lush vegetation lining the Uele River. Are these cattle destined to replace the abundant hippopotamuses that forage under the cover of night along the river’s edge?

MbororCattleUele

A large herd of cattle purchased by local Congolese from Mbororo herders, on the north bank of the Uele River, Lisala.

CattleEatBambo

Cattle feasting on bamboo at the forest edge.

Further to the north, in the shadow of a collapsed bridge across the Api River, we were told by a local man that Mbororo herders were massed just 30 km away from us, with tens of thousands of cattle ready to sweep across the savannahs. In their wake, he claimed, sometimes travelled child soldiers of the dreaded Lord’s Resistance Army (although according to him, the two groups were not friends). Later, as we travelled north, we would hear from a number of Azande that the Mbororo would frequently raid their fields for crops, leading to pitched battles. Such observations reinforced my impression of an inherent contradiction in the policy of the authorities of Northern DRC. Government officials were both sending military to confront Mbororo herders but at the same time buying cattle from them. Where this will lead is impossible to say.

Sadly, although commerce in monkeys and duikers seemed to be much less common in this region, as was the case at Bili 5 years ago, we did hear the distressing news that the traditional chief of Lisala was keeping an orphan chimpanzee at his house about 1 km north of the Uele River. In the past, we had received a number of reports of orphan chimpanzees having been captured from this narrow belt along the north bank of the Uele River. Henri and I paid the chief a visit. Henri carefully explained the ICCN mission and asked the chief if we could see the orphan. He sent someone up to his house, and in a few minutes we heard a shrill, near-human scream. Shortly after, we watched as a tiny infant chimpanzee was dragged down to the paillote on a leash. I readied my camera and began taking photos as the orphan was placed onto a bamboo pole beneath the chief’s paillote.

On my previous mission south of the Uele River I had looked into the desperate eyes of over 35 orphan chimpanzees, but one never really gets used to the shock of it—the unimaginable sense of loss and helplessness registered in those haunted, searching brown eyes. Although in the past we had been able to save a number of the orphans we had encountered on our travels, today there was nothing I could do for Lisala, only photograph him as he raised his eyes skyward and emitted a plaintive pant-hoot to which he will never hear a response.

Henri got the story of Lisala’s capture from the chief: about two months ago, in the forest about a two hours’ walk east from the town, a group of local bow-hunters came across a party of chimpanzees. According to the chief, the apes fled in terror, abandoning the baby for the hunters to capture. This is often the story given, but I find it extremely unlikely that a mother chimpanzee would desert her baby. Far more likely, she was shot for bushmeat, which the chief would not want to admit to the ICCN. Indeed, Lisala had a vivid red bruise on his right brow ridge, possibly acquired when he tumbled out of the trees clutching onto his dying mother.

LisalaOrphan1

LisalaOrphan2

LisalaOrphan3

Lisala the orphan chimpanzee, kept by a traditional chief just north of the Uele River.

The hunters presented the baby as a gift to the chief. Now the chief wanted cigarettes and / or money from us for the privilege of seeing his baby chimpanzee. We politely deferred, of course, and went into our standard speech about the danger of keeping chimpanzees as a pets, and the damage that such a practice inflicts on populations of free-living apes. As we left his parcel, the chief called out after us in Lingala as a parting shot: ‘Ezali mabe te – ey ko batela mboka ya mokondji!’ (It isn’t a bad thing – he will guard the chief’s village!’).

As we sped northwards on our motorbikes, I was left with a heavy heart. There are only a limited number of times that this tragic situation can repeat itself before the African forests will be emptied of our closest evolutionary cousins. We have little time left to come up with a solution.

LisalaOrphan4

What can we do to keep this tragedy from repeating itself over and over again?

A few hours and a couple of motorbike breakdowns later, near sunset, we crossed into the hinterlands of Bili, 12 km south of the town center. We stopped to stretch our sore backs and munch on some soft pink peanuts offered us by a friendly villager. A tiny and rather brazen kitten approached us and made fast friends with Karsten. We wondered what awaited us in the frontier town just over the horizon. The last time I set foot in Bili was over five years ago. Although at that time bushmeat was certainly consumed locally, there was little evidence that, with the exception of ivory, it had become linked to the commercial trade networks proliferating rapidly to the south. But will the situation remain the same in 2012? We shall see…

BiliWoman

The outskirts of Bili at sunset.

Along the Bushmeat Highway: Part 1
Along the Bushmeat Highway: Part 2

Also by Dr. Cleve Hicks, The FARDC ‘Petting Zoo’ at Bili

This mission was made possible by the generous support of the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, The Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation, The US Fish and Wildlife Service, l’ Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature, The Lucie Burgers Foundation, and The African Wildife Foundation.

Filed Under: Advocacy, Free-living chimps Tagged With: advocacy, animal protection, animal rescue, animal rights, Animal Welfare, bushmeat, bushmeat orphans, chimpanzee, Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, dr. cleve hicks, eyes on apes, free-living chimps, primate protection

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