Recently, I came across an old video that I narrated that mentioned how rare it was to hear Burrito laughing, and I was surprised.
Wait… Burrito didn’t laugh?!
I searched the blog and found more references to this phenomenon, like this one from as late as 2010, two years after he arrived at the sanctuary with his six groupmates.
Burrito’s laughter reverberates his side of the building frequently now. It’s really hard to believe that wasn’t always the case.
I even quizzed J.B. and he didn’t remember a time when Burrito didn’t laugh.
I talked to former staff member and current volunteer Elizabeth, who took the above video today during a volunteer shift, and she also couldn’t remember a silently-playful Burrito. We did both vaguely remember speculating that Burrito would put his hand or objects in his mouth to muffle the sound of his laughter.
We’re glad Burrito found his (laughing) voice.
Here’s a bonus photo from today of Gordo, Rayne, and Dora. It made me laugh.
All sixteen of the chimpanzees now at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest began their lives or spent decades in biomedical research.
If you are subscribed to our e-newsletter, you should have received an email yesterday (https://chimpsnw.salsalabs.org/novemberupdates) with some sad news for chimpanzees who are just as deserving of a sanctuary life away from laboratories.
While there was promising progress for a number of years getting chimpanzees out of research laboratories and into sanctuaries, there have been some very disturbing decisions by the NIH in the last few years that have left over 90 chimpanzees still in labs.
As the newsletter suggested, one action you can take right now is to reach out to your representatives. Animal Protection of New Mexico makes this easy. Senator Kennedy in Louisiana is speaking out publicly about these decisions and more members of congress should join him.
We’ll be sharing more information about this in the coming weeks.
