Tomorrow is National Family Day. It’s really just another made-up day, but it’s hitting home for me because of our newest family member here at the sanctuary, George.
This afternoon, I spent the better part of an hour with him. I had a long paper tube I thought might be fun to play with. I put one end up against the mesh where he was sitting and I passed him a black crayon by angling the tube up and letting the crayon slide down. His lips were waiting to catch it, and he seemed to think it was pretty fun.
Almost immediately, he turned around and dug through a pile of enrichment, pulling out an orange crayon. He proceeded to put the orange crayon into the paper tube, raising up his end so the crayon slid towards me. I gave him a hearty chimp laugh and we continued with some other games, including lots of tickling with a bamboo stick–me tickling him and him tickling me. At one point, he turned around and pressed his bum against the mesh for me to tickle. This is a high compliment from a chimpanzee and a sign of trust, so I was delighted.
We are still learning about George’s past. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to us to share your experiences and knowledge of George from his many years living at West Coast Game Park Safari. Things are moving forward with the charges against the owner of that facility. You can read about that here. This means there could be movement soon that would make George officially a permanent resident of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest rather than living in a state of legal limbo.
For Giving Day for Apes this year, we are telling the story of what we know of his early years. Please take a moment to read about his past on our Giving Day for Apes page and donate now for early giving or save your funds to donate on October 7th when we will be competing for cash prizes.
Legalities and the past aside, George is very much already a part of our sanctuary family.
You know from following the blog that George has embraced this new chapter of his life with surprising confidence, and we look forward to every day with him as he experiences new things, makes chimpanzee friends, and builds trust with his human caregivers.
George is just 21 years old. Nothing is guaranteed, but we hope that he will have more than half of his life ahead of him with our family.
National Family Day is a good excuse to make plans to protect the future of your family. One significant way you can do that is by creating a will. This may not be the first time you’ve read those words from me. Having lost my parents and other family members who fortunately had their affairs in order, while knowing others who have faced more challenging and complicated circumstances, has opened my eyes to how important it is to plan ahead.
That is why I decided to have the sanctuary partner with FreeWill. FreeWill provides a completely free service to help you write your will within 20 minutes. You can ensure your human and non-human family members are taken care and you can even designate beneficiaries for non-probate assets not included in your will.
This is a service for you. Including a gift in your will to Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest is entirely optional.
Including CSNW as a beneficiary could have a tremendous impact on the sanctuary’s future and establishes a legacy from you that provides home, love, home, and sanctuary to George and chimpanzees like him for years to come, but you can add the sanctuary later, choose multiple charities, or forego that option. It’s all up to you. Just take advantage of tomorrow’s National Family Day and create or update your wishes for the future.
It seems as if it took forever, but I was thrilled to read that PETA declared George was the last remaining solitary chimpanzee in a U.S. roadside animal park. Now I await the day the very last roadside zoo/attraction/animal park closes down.
How fortunate for George to be able to call all of you his family. His best life is just beginning.
Diana, thanks for sharing your crayon story.j know as a primate George is aware of other male/female primates. i don’t think you’d get banged with a carrot toss. I can’t help wondering if the fun you as a female human had with George moght translate to his ease amd enjoyment of the females in his chimp family. We can only hope.
And, of course, we all have our fingers crossed that CSNW will be George’s forever home. It would be unfair to have the poor guy move again when he is doing so well getting settled into his wonderful experiences of living a good chimp life.
Thanks again for reminding everyone about making a will or updating a will. It’s so important, but, like many of us do, it’s something we put in the back of our minds (like dentist visits) for another day. Maybe this is the day to do it.
I keep commenting that George hasn’t been added to the website yet and now I know why. I didn’t realize he doesn’t have legal, permanent status with you. I hope that is decided by the powers that be very soon. He has been making so much progress with integrating into your home that it would be a real shame to uproot the poor guy yet again. On another note, I really wish he and Bubba could meet and become friends. I think they would really like each other.
My heart breaks seeing that picture of George being paraded around like that. He most have been so scared and stressed. I am so thankful he is at CSNW and I hope he can become an official permanent resident of the sanctuary soon.
Do we know what happened to that orangutan from the flyer?
By what possible rationale would George be prevented from being given permanent residency at the CSNW? Notwithstanding his bombardment of a carrot against the USDA stooge, George seems content at the Sanctuary. He is receiving good food at least three times a day, has taken to the Bray to explore, and has become buds with Terry, Cy, and Gordo.
Unfortunately, as Dogberry says in “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Law is an ass.” I have no confidence whatsoever that the goverrnment is going to do the right thing; if there are loopholes in animal welfare policy (such as it is) that permit someone to remand a chimpanzee into her basement for months on end (as detailed in the “Chimp Crazy” documentary), what is to prevent some judge from ruling that George has to return to Scuzzy Sam’s Sideshow Circus or such like? I hope that George and the CSNW both have an excellent legal team that can demonstrate his present good treatment in juxtaposition to his previous imprisonment and exploitation. It would be nice to see the Good, and the Just, win a battle for once.
Thankyou, Diana,for sharing the latest update on George. I assumed that George was in his forever home with you, not realising this legal wrangle. How distressing it is with his future in the balance as he very much deserves to live out his life in the sanctuary he now calls home. I will certainly be making a donation to Giving Day for Apes with George and his future very much in my mind.