Chimpanzees make the most of their food.
Archives for June 2018
Happy Birthday, Dan!
This day of sanctuary for the chimps was sponsored by Cheryl Eklund in celebration of her husband, Dan Eklund, on his birthday with this special message:
“Happy Birthday to my wonderful animal loving husband. All Our Love, Cheri and Judee”
Cheryl thank you so much for thinking of the chimpanzees today as you all celebrate Dan’s birthday!
Happy Birthday, from all the primates here at the sanctuary, Dan! We hope it’s your best one yet! We so appreciate you making a difference in the chimps’ lives on your special day.
Missy is able to celebrate every single day to the fullest, thanks to people like you. May your heart be just as full.
Happy 45th birthday Negra!
Happiest of honorary birthdays to Negra Chimpanzee! We are throwing a big party this weekend for Negra’s birthday and the 10th year of the chimpanzees arriving at the sanctuary, so stay tuned for that! Today we are doing some special things just for Queen Negra, namely giving her some of her favorite things to eat. This morning we started the day with sweet potato pancakes! Negra loves both sweet potatoes AND bread, so these pancakes were just the right thing for a breakfast treat. In case you missed the video of the chimps eating their pancakes, you should definitely check out our Facebook Live video on our page. For lunch we put out a lettuce and peanut forage on Young’s Hill, two more of Negra’s favorites.
In preparation for dinner, volunteer caregiver Jake is busy baking sweet potatoes, peeling corn and cutting up oranges. The queen will be thrilled!
So much to celebrate!
Our dear friend, Kathleen Corby, sponsored this extra special day of celebration and shared this beautiful message:
“Two very special reasons for me to sponsor lucky June 13th: 1. I want to celebrate beautiful, remarkable, beloved Negra on her 45th birthday. The very first time I saw Negra she stole my heart. Knowing her past makes me admire and respect her all the more as I watch her courageously take on new adventures each year. Can’t wait for Negra to surprise me this year and many more years to come….Happy Birthday dear girl! 2. I am excited to celebrate with you from afar 10 magnificent years of Hope… Love… Home… Sanctuary at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Little did Missy, Annie, Negra, Jody, Foxie, Jamie, and Burrito know that the long trip from PA to WA ten years ago would change their lives for the better forever! You have given them their dignity and you have restored their wild inner souls. Happy Sanctuary Anniversary Day and much love always!”
Kathleen, we are just so lucky to have you as part of our chimp family. From our hearts, thank you for always sharing yours with the chimps, with us all. You make a lasting difference in their lives and we so appreciate the love and reverence you hold for each of them. Thank you for helping us celebrate such a special day!
If you follow us on Facebook, you may have seen us live this morning as the Birthday Queen started her special day off enjoying a homemade breakfast of sweet potato and berry pancakes served in the sunny greenhouse! If Negra could have ALL the bread and carbs, she would be a happy woman. Wouldn’t we all, Neggie, wouldn’t we all.
Happy Birthday, Negra, we love you!
And to Annie, Burrito, Foxie, Jamie, Jody, Missy and Negra, Happy Anniversary!! Ten years in your sanctuary home bouyed by the love and support of so many near and far. You surprise, delight, teach and humble us every single day and we couldn’t love you more.
Jamie:
Annie and Missy:
Foxie:
Burrito:
Annie, Foxie and Jody:
A new evening food puzzle
Jamie is the food puzzle star of the sanctuary, and she is also the most dominant of the group, so you might notice a lot of blog posts about her working on different puzzles that we give the chimps as evening enrichment. She has a tendency to want to keep all the puzzles to herself, so we’ve been working on finding new puzzles that we can fix to different spots around the chimps’ enclosure to give some of the other chimps more opportunities to access the puzzles.
Recently, I’ve gotten several videos of some of the other (non-Jamie) chimpanzees working on food puzzles. This video was taken while Jamie is otherwise occupied with her own project to work on inside the building. Here’s Jody trying out a new shake bottle puzzle. She makes it look pretty easy, so next time I think we will need to add some shredded paper for an added challenge!
The strawberry patch
We harvested the first big bowl of strawberries from the chimps’ strawberry patch today! Spring this year has remained windy and on the cooler side so we’ve only removed the panels of the greenhouse that face Young’s Hill to avoid the wind whipping through their toasty space. So the chimps have to go into the raceway leading to Young’s Hill to see the strawberry patch, but without fail, the second I’m out there I can hear a crowd gathering behind me in anticipation.
Jamie – this face!
Jody anxiously awaiting her berries (even Dora looks excited in the background 🙂 ):
Mmmmhhh, sun-warmed strawberries…
Missy reaching for her handful:
Annie and her strawberry covered tongue got tired of waiting for more and decided to help me out by sitting with her mouth and hand ready so I could drop more in as quickly as possible:
On a Day Like Today
Gosh these chimps were busy today! We had a few lovely people visit the sanctuary and donate some amazing stuff for our 10 year anniversary party (and Negra’s birthday) coming up! So it is easy to say the anticipation is definitely building. Today was obviously not a “normal day”. The chimps always keep us on our toes, but today Jamie was really keeping things interesting. Instead of her carefree, go with the flow mantra 😉 she was shaking things up. For example, this morning I was trying to close off the playroom for cleaning, but Jamie stayed back and didn’t want me to shift the doors. We eventually came to an agreement and she went to have breakfast. It was very good human enrichment! However, these were her choices and though it may have thrown me off she got to choose. Though these chimps had a full and busy day, rest assured they had time to play too.
Annie (left) & Missy (right) making sure the Hill was clear of snakes (don’t worry – there were none to find):
Annie had to have a moment to herself:
And then it was time to play again:
Jody was keeping a close eye on everyone on the Hill (also wadging a chow bag):
Missy stood bipedally before running into a full sprint:
Along the way Missy found some of her favorite things to forage for:
Jamie got to go on quite a few walks today:
Negra was living her best life today (napping, eating, and spending quality time with good friends):