Hi, everyone! My name is Jenna and I am the newest staff member at CSNW. I am so happy to be here!
Originally from Arizona, I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona in 2018. While I had anticipated going into the medical field with the goal of helping humans, I never felt confident with that plan. It was not until my final semester of college where I completed an internship at Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, where I had the epiphany, “why have I not considered working with animals before?”.
Immediately after graduating, I started unpaid internships so I could build my resume as I knew I wanted to pursue a graduate degree. While I completed two internships at AZA-accredited facilities, I knew I found something special when I began a wildlife medicine internship at a small sanctuary in Arizona, called Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center (SWCC). SWCC heavily focuses on wildlife rehabilitation and releases as many animals as possible. For those individuals that cannot be released, such as those formerly kept as pets illegally, SWCC provides them a home for the rest of their life, where they can live in peace. Up until to that point in my professional life, I had never seen anything like the work SWCC was doing. I was quickly hooked into the sanctuary world and I have never looked back.
While my title of staff is new, I am not a stranger to CSNW! I began interning here in 2019 when I moved to Washington for the Primate Behavior graduate program at Central Washington University. In fact, I arrived shortly after Mave, Honey B, and Willy B arrived at CSNW! I quickly fell in love with the people, the chimpanzees, and the positive atmosphere here. While the pandemic ended my in-person internship early, and I eventually went on to work at other chimpanzee sanctuaries, I always kept CSNW close to my heart. I think it is pretty evident a lot of former interns have similar experiences, as many have returned as staff.
For the past year, I have been in Florida working as a full-time chimpanzee caregiver at Center for Great Apes (CGA)! I learned so much during my time there and felt very fortunate to build such close, strong relationships with several of the chimpanzees. I would have to say that the highlight of my time working at CGA was being a caregiver to Knuckles. For those unfamiliar with his story, Knuckles was born in 1999 at a California entertainment facility and he quickly was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Based on the severity of his condition, doctors had no idea how long Knuckles would live. He arrived at CGA when he was 2 years old. He unexpectedly passed away in November 2021 at the age of 22. I am forever thankful for the opportunity to be apart of his life as I am not the same caregiver, nor person, as I was before knowing him.
I have been back in Washington since the end of April and I could not be happier. I have missed the beautiful landscapes, the wonderful humans that make up the CSNW staff, and of course, the chimpanzees.
As a disclaimer, my photography lessons with Chad and Anthony just started today, so please know these pictures will improve in the future (well, one can hope). Here are a few moments that I captured today:
Foxie:
Foxie and dolls:
Burrito:
Jamie:
Meredith:
