Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for May 2025

Willy B, Party of One

by

Through the years, we have all watched as Willy B has become more and more comfortable exploring The Bray.

Today, without the reassurance of his friends, Willy B ventured all the way to the top of The Bray!  He traveled about as far away from the building as he could get, and climbed up and down the highest structures like he’s been doing it his whole life! While sitting atop the structures, he took in his surroundings, feeling the spring sunshine on his face and the breeze in his hair.

What a lovely way to spend an afternoon!

Marvelous Miss Mavis

by

Some of the greatest joys of being a chimpanzee caregiver are all the little moments spent with the chimps each day… games of chase, tickles, grooming, kisses (safely, to the backs of our hands), breathy-panting, and getting to be downright silly with our chimpanzee friends every day. And we get paid to do it! In today’s blog video, join me for a surprise (to me) play session with Mave!

Mave is someone who does not often seek attention from me, and that’s okay! It is completely up to her who she wants to interact with and when, and oftentimes she prefers the company of her chimpanzee friends to the humans. So imagine my surprise when I arrived at the sanctuary one morning and there she was, breathy panting and head bobbing…at me! I looked around briefly to see if it was directed at someone else, before realizing my time had come. I dropped everything I was doing and accepted that we’d be running a little bit behind schedule that morning, because that’s what you do when Mave wants to play!

 

The days of May

by

May is probably the most beautiful time of year at the sanctuary. For a few brief weeks, the world turns neon green under alternating blue and charcoal skies, the surrounding hillsides are awash in yellow balsam root and indigo and violet mountain lupine, it’s finally warming up while not yet the scorching temperatures that come with summer, and the chimpanzees, cows, and humans are once again able to roam outdoors with freedom and ease. It’s like the deepest of breaths.

Rayne:

Missy and Jody:

GiveBIG returns on May 6-7, though it kicked off with early giving on April 22nd (thank you to all who have donated so far!). If you’re unfamiliar with GiveBIG, it’s a statewide campaign for non-profit organizations across Washington state and if you are interested in donating for the chimpanzees and cows, you can find the sanctuary’s page here. With immense thanks to a generous donor, all donations up to $10,000 are being matched!

Mother’s Day is May 11th this year and if you’ve been here awhile, you’ll know it’s a special day of celebration here at the sanctuary. We hope for sun and cool breezes, and we try to fill it with fresh spring flowers and exciting, colorful foods. We get to honor all the sanctuary’s chimpanzee and bovine mothers: Annie, Betsy, Foxie, Honey, Jody, Missy, and Negra. In truth, this day is for each of the chimpanzees and cows, the children they had, and the children they, too, once were in these lives they’ve found themselves in. We get to honor all that exists in the same breath for us all; the unimaginable losses, the unspeakable beauty, and the unexpected families found. The latter of which we have you, especially, to thank for.

Annie:

Betsy (r) and her beloved boy, Nutmeg (who we are always missing):

Foxie and Strawberry Shortcake:

Honey and her daughter, Meredith:

Jody:

Missy:

Missy’s daughter, Honey B, who we’re crazy lucky came to call the sanctuary home in 2019:

Negra:

Mother’s Day is of course also the day we chose as Jody’s honorary birthday. Though we never learned Jody’s actual date of birth, this day was chosen in honor of the nine children she gave birth to while in biomedical research and was never allowed to raise. As the official “den-mother” of her family here, it’s such a fitting day. As many of you are aware, we just passed the second anniversary of Jody’s death. She remains here with us, forever woven into our hearts, our lives, our days, and our celebrations.

Jody’s wildly handsome son, Clay, turns 38 on May 20th! Fortunately for Clay, he has called Save the Chimps in Florida home for many years. Clay’s story is hard to hear. But it’s also one that speaks so clearly to what sanctuary makes possible.

Clay was born to Jody and Mack (also Burrito’s father) at the Coulston Foundation. As noted in Clay’s history on Save the Chimps’s website where you can read more, Clay endured countless particularly egregious research studies until he was rescued by Save the Chimps in 2002, along with 265 other chimpanzees, when the Coulston Foundation was nearing bankruptcy. Clay spent many years living in isolation at Coulston and as you might imagine, he suffered deep trauma as a result of his abuse there, making it very challenging for him to feel comfortable living with other chimpanzees once rescued. But through patience and time, incredibly, Clay recently found a place within a family to call his own.

Clay now spends time on his family’s 3-acre island and continues to build bonds at his own pace with his family members. It requires an immense amount of courage on the parts of Clay and his caregivers to have such an incredible outcome well into his adulthood. I like to imagine that Jody is beyond thrilled for Clay, as are we all, with hope for his promising new future ahead. If you follow STC’s social media, they periodically share videos of him and his new family!

Clay (photo courtesy of Save the Chimps) most certainly has his mother’s beautiful eyes:

Jody:

Thank you for being here, friends! Happy May Day, happy Bealtaine for my Irish kin, happy spring, happy half-way to summer, and of course, happy half-way to Jamieween!! 😉