Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Archives for September 2025

Happy Birthday to Mave and Jennie!

by

Thank you so much to Jennie Makanos for sponsoring this special day of sanctuary in celebration of Mave and Jennie’s birthdays!:

“Mave and I share a Birthday (although she is a “bit” younger than I am!), so I wanted to sponsor a day of sanctuary in her honor. Happy 36th Birthday, Mave! May we both have many more.”

This is such a lovely way to celebrate your own birthday, Jennie, and we so appreciate you including Mave and helping to make her day extra special! All of us here hope you have a beautiful day and that it’s full of mangoes (or a suitable equivalent 😉 ).

“Mora” (Mave and her bestie, Dora):

Willy’s Got the Sillies!

by

Willy is known to be aloof, but he tends to be a goof when he gets the inkling. It is well documented that when Willy B gets the sillies it involves a box, foot stomping, or a slinky! The goofs can not be had without one of these items! Of course, once the sillies begin, they have to get out, otherwise they will get trapped in the Willy’s and well we can’t be having that…

 

Meredith’s 10th Birthday!

by

It’s Meredith’s 10th birthday! And what better way to celebrate with some of her favorite foods! For her birthday, Dr. Erin collected a feast of willow, apple and pear branches, grape vines, wild rose hips, and watercress, topped off with some homemade apple-pear sauce! Happy birthday, Meredith!

Dr. Erin offers Honey an apple
Meredith is offered a pear, which she rejected
Honey, Meredith, and Betsy in their summer pasture

A Shaky Bridge on the Bray

by

CSNW Founder, Keith, along with friends and family, spent the weekend improving the Bray habitat. We were able to turn a pile of leftover materials into a new tower, and we repurposed a shaky bridge that had to be taken down during our fence renovations. We also planted a few more trees with the hope that they’ll survive the chimps’ curiosity to one day provide some more shade at the bottom of the hill (thanks for the plum tree, Patti!).  The chimps took an instant interest in all of it—even Willy B braved the grass to check it out. Stay tuned for George’s reaction to the new climbing structures.

Many thanks to the whole crew for helping to build an even better Bray habitat.

George and National Family Day

by

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.

Meal Service

by

Every day, the chimpanzees are served 3 meals. Their diet largely consists of fresh fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, and browse (more fibrous plant material such as grape vines or cattails), but we still supplement their diet with a very small amount of commercially prepared primate chow.

In this photo, Negra holds pieces of primate chow in both hands.

Breakfast may be the most exciting meal of the day, because it includes not only fresh fruit, but also freshly made fruit smoothies! Their daily smoothie includes a variety of fruit (almost always bananas, usually combined with an assortment of fresh berries such as strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries) and supplements to support their health (for example, an omega fatty acids oil blend).

In this photo, Jamie polishes off her smoothie, making sure she gets every last drop!

The chimps are also served one type of vegetable, several peanuts, and primate chow at breakfast, in addition to their smoothies and fruit. For lunch, the chimpanzees are served another fruit, two different vegetables, and primate chow. For their final meal of the day, the chimps are served 3 different types of vegetables and a “night bag,” which includes a mix of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, raisins, other dried fruit, and popcorn. The night bag is the most exciting item at dinner time!

In this photo series, Dora enjoys a favorite vegetable – corn!

There are some items that are almost universally loved by the chimps. These include almost all fruits, and select vegetables like corn, avocado, and tomatoes (technically a fruit, but we count them as a vegetable for meals), to name a few. There are some exceptions – George, despite our best efforts to change his mind, is not interested in trying an avocado whereas Foxie loves them most! Missy is our well-known tomato connoisseur, and Cy loves corn so much that he does occasionally steal it from others (I think it is a fair tax as the alpha, he has a lot of work to do!). We are able to provide a wide variety of fruits and vegetables for the chimps, which vary by season, so some items are particularly exciting because they are only available seasonally (pomegranate is a great example!). For special occasions such as birthdays, arrival anniversaries, and holidays, we often prepare more novel foods to celebrate! Long-time volunteer caregiver Patti recently celebrated her birthday, and made chimp-approved carrot walnut waffles to celebrate with the chimps. Rayne, who has very high standards when it comes to food, absolutely loved the waffles!

If you’d like to support the chimps by purchasing some of their daily supplements, you can do so through our wish lists here. You can also become a Produce Patron, and help us keep the fridges stocked with a variety of fruits and vegetables!

Happy Birthday, Mike, from Terry!

by

Thank you so much to Terry Stockdale for sponsoring this wonderful day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees and her husband, Mike Stockdale, in celebration of his 75th birthday!

“We both look forward to the daily blog. Mike’s favorite chimp is Burrito, so please give him a new toy to chew on. He is also so proud of George’s courage as he is welcomed into a group.”

Happy Birthday, Mike! We hope you have a fantastic day!

We truly appreciate both of you and your long-time support of the chimpanzees and thank you for including them in your lives! You’ve helped make so much possible for them.

Burrito:

His usual blur…

George!: