Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Sometimes you just have to have flowers for the sake of having flowers. These sunflowers caught my eye this morning (they were in my garden) and I thought they could bring a little sunshine to the chimps’ day today.
Jody looked at the flowers and then did a taste test.
After eating a few, she took one with her out onto Young’s Hill and dropped it by her feet as she focused on eating her primate chow at breakfast.
Jamie checked them out too.
Yesterday we celebrated Annie’s 42nd birthday! Today we bring you a bonus video from the bird themed breakfast forage party we put together in the greenhouse. Keep a lookout for an owl pinata, delicious fresh coconut, and a book about animals!
Today we celebrate Beautiful Annie’s birthday. For the breakfast party in the greenhouse, we chose to have a bird theme because of the bird noises that she, uniquely, makes when she is relaxing.
The theme turned tropical with coconut, watermelon (that’s tropical, right?), pineapple, and fruit smoothie. Plus some primate chow, which Annie is fond of:
Also included were headbands (on the decorative slinky below) because of Annie’s sense of fashion.
Her friend Francoise even sent a book from Canada for us to interact with Annie (I did, later in the day, but didn’t get any photos – we’ll continue to have fun with this book, I can tell – Foxie and Jamie were very interested in it too!)
Later in the day, for the lunch forage, we had some of Annie’s favorite foods: green onions, leeks, cattails, and romaine lettuce. And we included some roses from the garden, mini-peppers, and more primate chow.
Let’s get down to the chimp pics. You decide if Annie enjoyed our efforts:
Of course the other chimpanzees appreciated Annie’s celebration too.
Burrito on a mission to find more food:
The coconut was a special treat:
Foxie:
Missy:
Negra:
Jody:
But there were plenty of other treats to enjoy throughout the day:
Negra foraging:
Jody with leeks:
Missy with a mouthful of chow:
Jamie’s hand getting the plate of food from under the tub:
Jamie with a leek and cattail:
The day ended with more treats – baked sweet potatoes and beets:
Annie thanks everyone for making her 42nd birthday a day of celebrating her favorite things and honoring how much we love her!
Today’s day of sanctuary was sponsored by the chimps’ good friends, Althea and Ahmad Dani, in honor of beloved Annie on her 42nd birthday!
“Happy Birthday Beautiful Annie! May this joyous occasion of your honorary birthday be filled with all of your favorites; vegetables, green onions to your hearts content, forages on your beloved hill and lots of glorious playtime with your best friend Missy. Safe and secure at sanctuary, you will never, ever be alone again. Each day now reveals a different layer of your once forced upon suppressed and imprisoned self. Just in case you didn’t know, you are gentle and couragious; daring and captivating; intelligent and thoughtful. Sing loud and joyously dear Annie. A whole bunch of us love and care about you so dearly. Pant hoots to this beautiful and charming lady that we call Annie!”
Althea and Ahmad, thank you so very much for sponsoring today for dear, sweet Annie! We so appreciate all that you do to bring joy, comfort and love to the Cle Elum 7 and those of their children who are fortunate enough to be residing at other sanctuaries.
Beautiful Annie, Happy Birthday!! May your gracious, gentle and courageous heart be filled with more love and joy than ever today as we celebrate the amazing person you are. May your day be filled with shenanigans with your beloved friend, Missy, green onions galore, stretchy “waist-band” couture, and everything else that makes you happy. We love you so much!!
Seeing Foxie take a moment to give her doll a hug before heading out for a walk on Young’s Hill.
Watching Negra enjoy a moment of peace and quiet in the greenhouse while the others are outside.
Seeing Burrito torn between playing with his caregiver and keeping an eye on lunch preparations.
One of the duties of dominant chimpanzees in the wild is to patrol the perimeter of their territories regularly to keep their group safe from intruders. Here at the sanctuary, Jamie leads the patrols. She’ll do it by herself if she has to, but she prefers to have a caregiver come along. Anywhere from a couple to a dozen times each day, Jamie and a human friend set off to systematically walk the perimeter of the two-acre Young’s Hill.
Today Grace, one of the chimps’ first volunteer caregivers at the sanctuary, returned for a visit after several years away. The last time Grace was here, the construction on Young’s Hill was not quite complete, so Jamie was eager for the opportunity to take a walk today with a beloved old friend. (Grace’s friend Colin, staff caregivers JB, Katelyn, and I, and Ellie the neighborhood elk went too.)
If you get motion sickness, you might want to skip this one. Otherwise, you’re invited to tag along on a stroll with this motley crew.
As Elizabeth wrote in her blog post the other day, as much as we truly love sharing what the chimps get up to each day with you, there are a variety of factors throughout any given day which can play into our time and occasionally we’re left scrambling to come up with something with which to produce a worthy post. And today was another one of those days. After our staff meeting this afternoon our window to find blog material was a bit shorter, coupled with the fact that the chimpanzees (rightly so) had zero interest in helping to solve this particular human’s challenge.
So I cannot tell a lie. Though the chimps all seemed to have had a great day enjoying the cooler weather as we head toward autumn, I fell short of catching even one of them in a photo. However! I have been hanging onto these gems that I captured during an evening walk with Jamie and her right hand gal, Missy, the other night as they scaled the Twister:
