Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for October 2022

Vignettes of Young’s Hill

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We caregivers have been excitedly toting around cameras while the chimpanzees continue to explore the new version of Young’s Hill. The outdoor habitat has retained all the lovable qualities of the original and provides the chimps with even more space and a potential for novel experiences (e.g., climbing up the trunk of a real tree). The weather has cooled substantially since last Wednesday’s big reveal, but we can still count on Jamie and her companions to do a thorough patrol of the new perimeter each morning.

For today’s blog post, I thought I’d share some additional images from the group’s first outings in Young’s Hill 2.0.

The group patrolling together:

Missy climbing a new log structure:

Burrito using the familiar Twister to get a better view:

Burrito waiting impatiently for the others to catch up:

Burrito perched on a tree trunk, inspecting the new vegetation:

Annie using a new structure to take in a new view of the property:

The most popular addition has been the grove of Ponderosa pines (and one Douglas fir) that is now located just within the enclosure’s eastern boundary. The relocated lookout tower provides a perfect vantage to both examine the evergreen trees up close and take in the scenic mountain views across the valley.

With the bright afternoon sunlight coming down from the southwest, the chimpanzees were visible as dark silhouettes against the golden backdrop of early autumn. Missy made an imposing figure when perched atop the lookout.

 

As Jenna demonstrated yesterday, focusing the camera lens on the chimpanzees is tricky when we have two layers of field fence and electrified wires between us. Our objective isn’t to make you forget about the fencing entirely, but rather to portray the chimpanzees as we perceive them, with the wires out of focus and their expressions in clear view. If you look back at any of the photographs above, you can see the hazy streaks created by the fencing that separates us and them.

Auto-focus admittedly makes tracking the chimpanzees a little bit easier, and a lens with a wide aperture helps to blur out foreground obstacles, but we still often find ourselves embroiled in games of trial-and-error just to get a few photos for the daily blog.

This image, for example…

…was taken just milliseconds before this one:

Have a great week, everyone!

P.S. The answer to yesterday’s guessing game is 17 blankets. Congratulations to Linda C., Nancy Potter, and Gayle Marie Stone for guessing correctly!

Spotted on Young’s Hill: Negra

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Today was a beautiful day for a lunch forage on Young’s Hill! While it is still quite cold, the sun was out which overall made the day more tolerable. The forage included red onions, mini sweet peppers, and tomatoes. Here are some photos from today’s forage! As you will see, Negra was too fast for my rookie camera skills. Enjoy!

Foxie:

Jamie:

Missy:

Burrito:

Here is evidence that Negra did go on the hill… hold the applause for these excellent photos (camera couldn’t focus in time).

Negra:

On Friday, I posted two photos of “Mystery Lips”. Many of you got #2 correct, but #1 appeared to be more difficult. How did you do?!

Mystery Lips #1:

Mystery Lips #1 belong to……. CY!

Mystery Lips #2:

Mystery Lips #2 belongs to…… HONEY B!

A few weeks ago, Jen Feuerstein made a comment suggesting we should have a game where we guess how many blankets are in the very popular hangout spot, aka Room 7. So instead of guessing how many candies are in the jar…

How many blankets do you think are in Room 7? We will post the answer tomorrow!

One Queendom Two Queens

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Here in Chimpanzee Sanctuary, we have a member of true chimpanzee royalty. Negra, first of her name, Queen of the Chimp House. The first 30 years of Negra’s life, after being captured in the wild, were filled with laboratory procedures, an unjustified prolonged period of isolation time, and general despair. Since 2008 Negra has been ruling the Chimp House with an iron fist, determination and self assurance. That said, in this Queendom, there is room for two queens. In the past, Jody was crowned Queen of Nest Building and Relaxation for her love of building amazingly intricate nests to rest in, and then carrying them around the Chimp House. But today, I want to officially add another tittle.

Humans, I here present unto you Queen Jody, your undoubted Queen of Nest Building, Relaxation, and BUBBLES.

There is enough space for these two queens. Negra in the back, Jody in the front.

Queen Negra herself.

Brrrrrrrrrr, it’s cold out here!

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Brrrrrrrrrrrr… it is cold today in central Washington! It is 47 degrees (according to my phone’s weather app) as I type this. Despite the sudden cooler temperatures, the chimpanzees have been enjoying their day outside. Jamie’s group has been on/off their new and improved Young’s Hill all day and Cy’s group has spent lots of time in their two greenhouses.

This morning during cleaning, I heard chimpanzee laughter coming from one of the front rooms. It’s normal for Burrito to be playing in the morning but it is always a guess as to who his play buddy is! Today, it was Negra. In my personal opinion, Negra play sessions are the best! So enjoy today’s video featuring a nice play session between Burrito and Negra, with Foxie in the background for moral support!

Now let’s play a game!

Here are two photos… can you guess whose lips these belong to?! Comment your guesses below and I will reveal the answers on Sunday’s blog!

Mystery Lips #1:

Mystery Lips #2:

Video: The Chimps are Back on the Hill

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As you may have seen in yesterday’s blog post, the Seven are back on the hill! Here’s the video, as promised.

In case it’s not clear, we had to take down the original fence so that we could expand the overall habitat area and split it into two enclosures. The Young’s Hill side, which belongs to the Cle Elum Seven, was pushed further up the hill and to the north and grew by an additional half acre to 2.4 acres. This was only possible because we purchased the surrounding lots and no longer have to worry about encroaching development (after closing on another parcel yesterday, the sanctuary now owns approximately 110 acres). More space means more room for climbing structures, irrigation, and plantings, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us in that department, but we wanted to get the Seven back out as soon as the fence was complete. Perhaps more important than the expansion in habitat size, Young’s Hill now includes a stand of pine and fir trees, which Missy has already conquered. Who will be next?

One thing to note: Negra is not in the video as she did not go outside on the first day. Too many people and too much excitement, perhaps. But she just went out for a lunch forage this afternoon, so the Queen is also back on the hill.

Now that they are back out, we can turn our attention to completing the Bray. The Sage Mechanical crew is welding the remaining gates and post assemblies now and it will be at least a few weeks before we can complete the fencing on that side. We were fortunate from a construction standpoint to have a prolonged summer but fall weather arrives this weekend and winter won’t be far behind. So the timing for Cy’s group to learn about electric fencing and explore their new enclosure is somewhat up in the air. Whatever happens, we’ll work as fast as we can to keep our options open.

Our thanks go out to all of the donors that made this project possible. I also want to thank Dustin and East Slope Earthworks, Katie, Sean, Dusty, Ben, Karen, Richard, Elizabeth, Tom, Gordy, Steve, Debbie, Donna, Laurie, Kurt, Kristin, Jeremy, Liz, Michael, Lisa, Jesse, Adam, Kyle, Grace, Ryan, Jacob, Nolan, Karen, Claus, Logan, Kyle, Jan, Chet, Sabrina, Brenda, and Chelsey for volunteering their time and energy to help build the habitats. My apologies to anyone I accidentally left off the list. And of course we are grateful to Gary, Aaron, and Jose of Sage Mechanical for all of their hard work on this project. There’s something about the fact that these habitats are built by a community of supporters that makes them even more special.

Let Tree-dom Ring

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Well, we have some exciting news! I am not sure if anyone picked up on Anthony or Chad’s very subtle hints, but today Jamie’s group received access back to the new and improved Young’s Hill! For those who might be wondering about Cy’s group, the Bray Hill isn’t quite ready yet.

This afternoon, watching the seven go back out into their outdoor enclosure was a spectacular event to witness! I will share a few highlights of the day and tomorrow JB will have a video with more details to share!

Annie trying out new structures:

Burrito exploring:

Fearless little Foxie:

Missy and Annie inspecting:

Jody:

Jody and Foxie checking out their new structure:

Chad took this photo of Jamie. To me, this photo is the epitome of sanctuary:

Also this photo of Jamie, she looks so happy:

Maybe one of the best highlights of the day is Missy being the first to climb the trees! We humans and probably Jo were all holding our breath, but also so excited to watch Missy agilely climb a tree for the first time EVER!!!

Jody watching Missy climb a tree:

Jody and Annie monitoring Missy closely from the ground:

“Here I sit beneath a tree. Heartbeat calm. Soul hums free.”

– Angie Weiland-Crosby

Go Nuts For Coconuts

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When caregivers get done cleaning the playrooms, we usually put a forage inside to convince the chimpanzees to take up our invitation to go into the newly cleaned area and leave the one we want to close off to clean. These forages are smaller than the lunch forages and more often than not made of greens like lettuce, cabbage, kale, etc. But every so often we like to surprise them with something a little more exciting. Today, their invitation was made for them to go nuts! It was coconuts!

The chimpanzees seemed to really love it. Especially Burrito! As you can see in the video, sometimes the anticipation is the best part of the of the excitment of things to come!

Here are some photos of Negra with the pieces of coconut she got during the forage:

And Jody and Jamie enjoying a browse of cornstalks in their Greenhouse:

And this guy (Burrito!) playing with caregiver Kelsi!

And as a reminder, the Countdown to Jamieween has begun! There are still some items on the wish list we think she and her family would like!