Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for September 2018

Late summer days

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Typically September is our guaranteed best weather of the year. Well, in our opinions. 🙂 The heat dies down along with the winds, mornings and evenings are cool, but the days sunny and warm. The green of summer is becoming flecked with gold, red and orange. It’s that perfect blend of summer and autumn. The fifth season, betwixt and between. But this year, September has been a little more cold and rainy than usual. Yesterday was so unexpectedly cold! Today we’re back to bluebird skies and a warm sun despite a brisk, damp morning. The chimps have been full of joy and shenanigans all day. Especially Foxie. She’s been full of pirouettes, backflips, cartwheels from the top to the bottom of the caging, playing chase, and just being the most joyful being. Even the normally serious boss lady, Jamie, has been extra silly and happy. Here are some of the things the chimps got up to today:

Annie and Missy were first to the top of a structure after breakfast to take in the view:

Negra enjoyed a moment in the sun:

Foxie decided to play Spider-chimp and take the more adventurous way up the newest structure:

Foxie was sneering all the way back to the greenhouse because she was annoyed by the tall grass in her face and even more so, her nemeses…the grasshoppers! Oh, she hates those grasshoppers!

And some bonus photos from a few days ago of Jody luxuriating in the turtle pool, because obviously you had to see these:

Burrito’s Close-up

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Being the only male can be hard…

But who could resist this handsome fellow!

Here are a few extra photos…

Missy eating apples on the Hill this morning:

Missy foraging for corn at lunch:

Jody’s loot today:

Negra was really excited about corn:

Annie did pretty well during the lunch forage:

Foxie:

And then there is Jamie (she has been enjoying her new firehose swing):

 

 

Jody’s Family

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It was just three weeks ago that we separated Jody from the group in order to stitch an injury to her eyelid. If you didn’t know it had happened, you probably wouldn’t notice that her left eye looks a little different. I suspect in another three weeks even we won’t be able to tell which eye it was.

(Incidentally, when I saw the photo above, I immediately thought of this photo of Jody’s daughter Andrea who lives at Save the Chimps in Florida. Like mother, like daughter!)

Dr. Erin did a great job of the procedure, no doubt. Plus chimpanzees have this uncanny ability to heal very quickly (thank goodness!).

I keep thinking back to the days after the procedure and how each step was an affirmation of why Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest exists and the role of the humans at the sanctuary.

When the injury happened, Jody was clearly irritated that her eyelid was kind of just hanging there (sorry for that graphic image), though she was not irritated enough that she ignored the rest of her lunch. On the contrary, she went right back to eating when the fighting had stopped.

The humans figured out pretty quickly that we needed to fix her eyelid because it serves such an important function of protecting the eye. After a little while, Jody seemed to agree with us, and she did not protest when we invited her to be separated from the other chimpanzees with the doors closing behind her.

I really believe that she knew she needed our help.

It took her the whole next day after the procedure to completely recover from the anesthesia, and she allowed me to sit with her (on the other side of the caging) and offer her sips of water in between her naps.

The day after that, however, she wanted to be back with the other chimpanzees.

We reunited them the next day, but then separated Jody again when Dr. Erin decided she needed some time away from Dr. Missy and any other overly zealous grooming partners.

Though it wasn’t an issue to separate Jody, she was definitely not as content to spend time by herself this time around. She was constantly watching what the group was doing, vocalizing along with them, and hopeful that she would be back with them each time we operated the doors. After a couple more days of healing, there was another reunion, and this time it lasted.

Here’s what I love about Jody’s reaction to all that happened: She accepted our help and let us pamper her a little, but the second she felt even halfway better, she wanted to be with her people. The humans are not her people. She has a family of chimpanzees – they are her people. She’s not related to any of them, but they are her family.

She wanted to be back with them even after sustaining a pretty intense injury during a fight with these same people.

And that explains the role of the humans at the sanctuary. We are protectors and sometimes fixers, up to a point. We make sure that the chimpanzees have food, medical care, and an interesting and comfortable environment.

But the truth is that they need each more than they need us. They have their own lives to lead.

That is one of the reasons why we are working hard on the Bring Them Home Expansion Campaign in order to bring more chimpanzees to the sanctuary. We don’t know how long these seven chimpanzees will be here, but we know that as long as they are alive, they will need a family of other chimpanzees.

For Giving Day for Apes this year, we are highlighting the expansion campaign. We hope you will join in the donating on September 25th to help expand the family at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest and be a part of providing them with what the really need.

A snake in the garden

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The intensity of a snake alarm call is usually proportional to the snake’s size and proximity to the chimps. Basic alarm calls mean a snake has been spotted. Screams mean it is an imminent threat. But you have to recalibrate your understanding of snake calls when Annie is involved because to her, every snake is an imminent threat.

Even if it is a tiny garter snake, taking a nap on a grape vine well outside of the chimps’ greenhouse enclosure.

Missy

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Missy came alarmingly close to never making it out of the research lab. She almost died while recovering from a hysterectomy shortly before moving to the sanctuary. Missy is so full of life these days that it’s easy to forget that if things had played out just a little differently, we never would have had the opportunity to get to know and love her. What a loss it would have been.

Missy is who we all want to be. She is fearless, cool, and adventurous. She’s strong and athletic, with a penchant for daredevilry. She has a silly sense of humor and is fiercely loyal to her friends. Though she does on occasion honor us with her attention, she usually prefers chimp company. And that’s fine with us – we’re just glad she’s in our world.

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

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Today was sponsored by Dana Kennedy in honor of Jeff Kropp’s birthday weekend! Dana, thank you SO much for including the chimpanzees in your weekend of celebration and for all you do to make a lasting difference in their lives!

Jeff, we hope you have the best birthday yet! Thanks so much for sharing it with the chimps! Burrito would probably say he hopes you get to eat a lot of good food. A LOT of good food. 🙂

Negra’s prize

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This morning when I opened the door to Young’s Hill for the chimps, the group filed out together to check on their 2 acre outdoor enclosure. Negra, who often goes back to bed after breakfast (instead of exploring), headed outside with everyone else. She found a perch on the nearest platform and was clearly watching the construction workers. Things have been a bit noisy lately as they have moved on from the masonry to putting in the ceiling rafters (quite a bit of thumping and bumping sounds are happening on the kitchen roof). There is a lot of activity to be curious about!

Perhaps she had an ulterior motive all along when she went outside, because she happened to snag a leftover sunflower and carried it back to her nest. Nothing signifies the end of summer quite like the lovely sunflower.