January 29, 2025 - Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Today we celebrated a special milestone – Rayne’s 35th birthday! Taking advantage of the perfect weather (cloudless skies and mild temperatures), we turned lunch into an forage out on the Bray. The birthday girl and her friends enjoyed warm soup made by caregiver Ellen and some extra-special smoothies while basking in the winter sunshine.

Anyone who knows Rayne knows that she’s the glue that holds our sanctuary family together. Her presence at CSNW is nothing short of a gift – she’s the kind of friend everyone wishes they had. When Cy needs a loyal companion, Rayne’s right there. When Willy B has one of his tough days and cant resist acting out, she responds with remarkable patience and understanding. And then there’s her food-trading ritual with Lucky, where they’ve worked out their own little system of swapping food items they don’t want during meals.

The sanctuary wouldn’t be the same without her steadfast, calm and confident presence. Here’s to you, Rayne – thirty-five years young and still making our days brighter!

I would also like to extend a special thank you to Paulette Wrisley for sponsoring the day for Rayne!

Lucky & Rayne on the hunt for snacks:

Rayne was a big fan of the soup that was specially made for her:

Rayne, enjoying her snacks:

I couldn’t love this day of sanctuary from our dear friend, Kathleen Corby, more. It’s beautiful and grounding and relevant in all the best ways. Thank you so much, Kathleen, this is a gift to read.

“January 29, 2025 marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake. As we kick off the Lunar New Year, I couldn’t help but think of the chimps!

To be more specific, this is the Year of the Wood Snake. Per Chinese cosmology, each year an animal is paired with one of the five basic elements: gold, wood, water, fire, and earth, which create a 60-year cycle. The elements compliment and conflict with each other, but it is this ongoing interaction that is believed to promote harmony, balance, and order in the natural world. The Wood Snake is said to be charming, intelligent, and creative but also secretive, cunning, and sometimes ruthless.

To the chimpanzees who reside at CSNW, snakes are just a nuisance, intruders slithering into their home, uninvited and unwanted. Not to mention, snakes for many, are simply downright scary and very dangerous! Just ask Annie and Burrito.

But, I see a similarity between these slithery serpents and the sanctuary chimpanzees. Snakes shed their skins to accommodate growth as their bodies expand, to remove parasites that may be attached to their old skin, and to repair to the outer layer, essentially allowing them to “refresh” their skin as they grow throughout their lives. After a snake sheds its skin, it is left behind.

Isn’t this a similar process to what each individual living in the sanctuary has had to do? Coming from backgrounds where they were used as unwilling test subjects in biomedical laboratories, each has had to shed the skin of their past. Each chimpanzee, in their own way, has had to go through a process of “repair” in the hopes that they will “refresh” their lives as they grow. And in constantly doing so they, hopefully, leave their pasts behind.

So here’s to the Year of the Wood Snake! May it bring harmony and peaceful order to our beautiful natural world.”

Birthday beauty, Rayne (she turns 35 today!!):