Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for June 2023

National Best Friends Day

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Chad informed me that it is National Best Friends Day today. What better day than today to highlight some of the best friend pairs around here at the sanctuary!

Jenna took this photo of  Mave and Dora yesterday. I hope we are all so lucky to have a BFF that looks at us the way Mave looks at Dora.

Here are some other highlights of “Mora” from the last several years. You might notice a lot of hand holding and hugs from those 2.

 

On the other side of the building, I obviously have to highlight the other 2 famous BFFs of the group, Annie and Missy!

While Mave and Dora are more so a lounging and hand holding pair, Annie and Missy are often spotted adventuring and playing together.

 

Of course, they get plenty of down time together where grooming is the main event:

Wishing everyone a happy National Best Friends Day – make sure to call that special someone(s) and tell them how much they mean to you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Karen!

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Julie and Karen Olson are loyal friends and supporters of the chimpanzees and we’re thankful to Julie for giving us the opportunity to join in celebrating her sister, Karen, with a day of sanctuary.

“I am sponsoring this day of sanctuary in honor of my sister Karen’s birthday. She is the one who told me about the original Cle Elum 7 coming to live in Washington. I feel this is her favorite gift each year. She follows the blog daily and I do too. Happy Birthday Sis!”

Happy day from all of us here, Karen! We hope it’s a beautiful one! We appreciate you both.

Missy and Annie:

Jody and Foxie:

Mave and Dora:

Negra and Jamie:

Jamie and Burrito:

Defending the Title

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While Anna and I deep cleaned Playroom 1, we heard some laughing (breathy panting) coming from Front Room 4. We knew our usual suspect would be Burrito, which was true, but we assumed he would be playing with Jamie or Foxie. To our surprise, when we peered over it was Burrito and Negra playing! As many of you may know, Negra can get rough when she decides to wrestle and let me tell you, it may have turned into a game of Foxie and Burrito vs. Negra, but she was holding her own and Negra was NOT going easy on them. In all the years that I have been working at CSNW, it was been such an honor to watch Negra get to decide what she wants to do every day. Negra gets to make choices- going on Young’s Hill to forage for grass, napping all day if she desires, playing with Burrito, or even the choice of interacting with humans (besides meals and medical intervention, of course). It’s kind of crazy to think that our 15th anniversary of the Cle Elum Seven arriving to CSNW is just around the corner (6 days to be exact) and with that we will be celebrating our dear friend Negra’s 50th birthday! Let’s not forget our very sweet friend Terry shares the same birthday as Negra and is turning 33! This coming week is going to be a trifecta jubilee!

Speaking of the Trifecta Jubilee, we have some exciting news to share! Because we are hitting big milestones this year, we are also hoping to reach big fundraising goals! An anonymous donor has pledged $30,000 matching donations through the month of June! All donations given now until the end of June will be doubled until we reach $30,000. Follow the link to learn more about how you can help us reach our goal!

As we celebrate the Trifecta Jubilee, don’t forget to sign up for the special opportunity to, Sit Down with the Co-Directors, on Saturday, June 10th at 2 pm. Join J.B. and Diana as they discuss the joys of running a sanctuary and working with chimps, the difficult aspects of working with chimps in captivity, and any of your burning questions you might have for them! J.B. and Diana have dedicated their lives to these chimps and are truly incredible people to work for, it’s an honor to get to work along side them. So I hope you all take advantage of this amazing opportunity! 🙂

I wanted to take a moment to say that I think we all wish that in celebrating, Jody would have been with us on June 13th, we will leave room for acknowledgement for her absence on that day, but Jody was able to have 15 amazing years in sanctuary, which is more than we could have hoped for! We know that Jody would have wanted us to have a giant party for Negra filled with all of Negra’s favorite foods, like Hawaiian rolls, which of course will be on the menu!

Neggie this morning greeting us with sweet kisses:

Silly Foxie:

Gordo with a mouth full of grapefruit and peanuts:

Sweet laid back Mave:

Dora’s 34th B-Day Bash!

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Today is a very special day at CSNW because sweet Dora turns 34 years old! This is Dora’s second birthday living in a true sanctuary setting which means that we are close to celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the Lucky Six’s arrival at CSNW. It is safe to say that she has stolen everyone’s heart with those big bubbly eyes, but mostly Mave’s heart. Dora’s best friend is Mave. Wherever you see one, you see the other one, making it very appropriate to call the duo: Mora. While Dora gets along great with everyone in her group, she is not to be messed with. Dora is a tiny chimpanzee, but she is mighty and will let you or her friends know, with impressive double kicks, if something is not to her liking.

To celebrate our favorite mini chimp, caregivers threw Dora and her friends a mini foods forage party.

The mini foods included were mini bananas, mini carrots, mini peppers, cherry tomatoes, mini cabbages, mini potatoes, and many more. Everyone, but specially Dora, had the best time!

Huge thanks to Paulette Wrisley for sponsoring today’s day of sanctuary in honor of Dora’s birthday!

World Environment Day 2023

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Today is World Environment Day! World Environment Day has been held annually on June 5th since 1972 to raise awareness on issues our environment is facing and how to combat them. The events are also hosted by a city or nation to lead the theme and festivities. This year is being hosted by Côte d’Ivoire with the theme Solutions to Plastic Pollution with the social media hashtag #BeatPlasticPollution.

Here at Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest, we try as much as we can to limit our footprint on the environment. From composting uneaten foods to recycling paper to reusing items for chimpanzee enrichment, we are conscious of what we use, how we use it, and how to properly dispose of it. Through the TerraCycle programs, we have boxes setup throughout the sanctuary where staff and volunteers can get rid of used gloves and masks, which are then shipped off to be recycled. We also use Tru Earth laundry eco-strips. These strips if concentrated laundry detergent help us keep the chimpanzees’ blankets smelling fresh without the use of big plastic jugs detergent usually comes in. In fact, the packing itself is zero waste and can be composted. Did you know, the people were gracious enough to set up a fundraising page for us? Every purchased made at this link, 20% will be donated to help with the chimpanzee and cattle care!

For World Environment Day, I had a plan to have photos of the chimpanzees with today’s browse: wild roses!

The chimpanzees were faster than I had anticipated. After giving them access back to their Greenhouse after cleaning, Jamie’s group left nothing buy stems of the once beautiful roses. This photo of Jamie finishing off the last rose was all I was able to capture.

I apologize, but you will just have to imagine the chimpanzees with roses.

After all the roses were gone, it was time to relax. I couldn’t tell though if Burrito was relaxing or planning his next scheme.

(Hint: it was a scheme that involved a lot of play.)

On the other side of the sanctuary, Cy’s group had an amazing day on the Bray. The weather was perfect. The sun was out. The temperature was warm but not hot. And there was a breeze that would come through every so often.

Cy looking on as Rayne and Gordo explore Ryan’s Lookout.

Rayne and Gordo marching along.

Cy soaking up some sun.

Lucky looking out to the valley and river below the sanctuary.

Rayne waiting for the train to pass by.

While most were out on the Bray, some elected to stay behind and groom in the shade.

Mora!

Mave even was able to go into full relaxation mode.

Happy Birthday, Jeffrey!

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From all the primates here at CSNW, a big heartfelt thank you to Jeffrey Abramczyk for sponsoring this day of sanctuary!

“Today’s my birthday and what better way to celebrate it then sponsoring a day to celebrate with the CSNW residents!”

We totally agree, Jeffrey- thank you so much for sharing your celebration with us! We hope you have a wonderful day- cheers to you!

In honor of your celebration, here’s some photos of the chimps celebrating too!

Cy:

Honey B:

Sweet, sweet Jody:

Missy:

Negra:

Willy B:

 

 

The Boss and Her Rules

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Yesterday, Sabrina wrote about the walk she took with Rayne around the Bray. It’s so exciting to see Cy’s group explore their new habitat- if there’s anything we’ve learned from Jamie’s group and Young’s Hill, it’s that seeing them explore outside truly never gets old.

So, earlier today (and every day, really), when Jamie wanted to go for a walk, I was pumped! While I was trying to figure out what she needed for the walk, I realized I had my blog topic for the day. Jamie has rules when it comes to her walks, naturally, and we have to abide!

Today, we were cleaning the front rooms when Jamie popped up in the loft of the playroom. I was walking into the chimp area from the kitchen and she started pointing, so I stopped cleaning and tried to figure out what she wanted. First, I tried showing her a few different boots to see if one was what she wanted. She didn’t stop pointing (aggressively) so I knew I hadn’t gotten it right yet. Her short, black boot had been drying on the kitchen boot dryer so I snagged that and she nodded at me, but still pointed towards me. I was getting closer, but wasn’t quite there yet, so I put the boot on and grabbed her favorite bonobo books and she was gone! I met her outside the greenhouse and off we went. Almost everyone joined us today, but Negra opted to remain in the super comfy nest she had made in the greenhouse.

After walking with Jamie, she will usually want one or all of the items she asked you to bring around the hill. Since it’s chimp approved enrichment, we give it to her! Today she wanted her three bonobo books, but didn’t want her boot, so I put it aside to give to her before closing up the chimp house this evening.

After you have successfully navigated the pre-walk steps of figuring out what exactly you need to bring, done the actual walk itself, and given her the things from the walk she wanted- then she will often want to sit and groom for a bit. 🙂 These are all ways to build your relationship with her and, when the day can get so busy, they’re also nice quiet moments that we can spend with her.

We don’t always get it all right when we try and figure out what the chimps want, but it is one of the most important parts of our work here so we always try… Even if it means disappearing from cleaning for a little while (thanks, Lizz and Courtney!)

BONUS PHOTOS:

Jamie’s group wasn’t the only side to explore outside today! Rayne, Gordo, Cy, Willy B, and Lucky all enjoyed some time out on the Bray this afternoon.

Rayne and Gordo going all the way to the top:

Your eyes didn’t deceive you- Rayne was rockin’ some Sporty Spice fashion on the Bray today!

Willy B enjoying the sunshine:

Terry being his handsome self:

 

Foxie enjoying lunch: