“October is finally here and it’s officially the Season of Jamieween!! IYKYK.”
“And if you don’t know yet, we celebrate my birthday on October 31st (aka Halloween) and it’s rightly one of the biggest celebrations of the year! So get ready! Now. (Said with unblinking eyes peering through your very souls).”- Jamie, probably.
Jamie is going to be 48!
To know Jamie is to know a force of nature. She is strong, creative, intelligent, mischievous, silly, opinionated, willful, intimidating, demanding, beautiful, and unspeakably resilient. And not without her scary side. It’s not always easy being her friend, but it’s a privilege unlike any other.
Our summer visits for our amazing donors just wrapped up last weekend and one of the highlights for guests (and all of us, to be honest) is being able to observe Jamie and her group forage for their lunch on Young’s Hill, their two-acre outdoor habitat. As we point out each of the chimpanzees to everyone I always delight in bringing everyone’s attention to Jamie, immediately recognizable by her no nonsense, straight-backed, power-stance posture. It’s very Jamie.
Like her group-mates (Negra, Foxie, Burrito, Missy, Annie, and previously, Jody), Jamie spent thirty years of her life in biomedical research, living in a cage the size of a bathroom stall. They’ve known one another longer than we’ve known them. Where her background differs from theirs is that she spent the first nine years of her life living with a trainer in the entertainment industry, probably being raised much like a human child until she certainly became too powerful and dangerous to control any longer. The trainer then sold her to a dealer who sold her into biomedical research. Jamie is very human-oriented and we’ve often said that of all the chimpanzees, we feel she is most uniquely aware of her captivity.
Also like her group-mates, Jamie has approached her so far seventeen+ years in sanctuary with arms and heart wide open to every choice and opportunity provided to her. The level of resilience and tenacity that takes is beyond comprehension.
“Jamieween” is easily one of the biggest, most anticipated celebrations here at the sanctuary. When October 31st was chosen as her honorary birthday there was no way of knowing just how appropriate of a date it is. Anything a little spooky, creepy, macabre? She is all in. Skeletons, mummies, and blood? She’s fascinated! There is no one like Jamie. And how incredible is it that she gets to be celebrated and honored for exactly who she is, that she finally gets to have a sense of agency over her life, how she wants to spend her time, and how she wants the humans to care for her.
Here is one of my all time favorite Jamie stories. Jamie LOVES tools, machinery, utility vehicles, anything with some power to it. And as many of you have seen over the years, she also LOVES walking with her caregivers around her outdoor enclosure (her inside, us outside, of course), and all the better if we are racing on foot or by Gator. So imagine her perceived perfect combo when one day she spotted J.B. doing some work at the top of Young’s Hill with the chainsaw! Yep! She sure did try to get him to chase her around the perimeter of the hill with the chainsaw!! This is quintessential (and horrifyingly and hilariously) Jamie!! Of course, thankfully, J.B. isn’t a run-with-scissors (or chainsaws) kinda guy, which I can imagine Jamie was pretty disgusted with. 😉 (If you caught J.B.’s recent post about George hurling a carrot at the USDA inspector, just imagine if this kind of scene happened during his visit! HA!).
We love her so much.
Racing with some of her caregivers:
And no Jamieween was, or ever will be, complete without our beloved “Great Pumpkin Thief”, Jody. She heisted the pumpkin every year! Always in our hearts:
Here at the sanctuary the entire month of October belongs to Jamie (as it should), but we are also thrilled to celebrate Negra’s sweet son, Noah, who is turning 36 on October 17th! We had the wonderful opportunity to meet Noah at his sanctuary home, Save the Chimps, in Florida and he’s such a special guy! (Photo courtesy of Save the Chimps):
His mom, Negra:
As life would have it, we are so often asked to hold joy and grief in the same breath and as I was writing this, we learned along with the rest of the world of the profoundly sad news that Dr. Jane Goodall passed away this morning at the age of 91. She was on tour, just as she had chosen to spend most days of her life for the last many years, endlessly dedicated to protecting, raising awareness of, and hope for, this astounding and invaluable world we all get the privilege to share with so many remarkable beings. She was a remarkable being.
Anything I could say here would fall short. How grateful we are that we got to live in a world with Jane Goodall and for the immense difference she made in so many lives, be they human, tree, dog, chimpanzee…so many beings. The world won’t be the same without her. And for countless of us, it won’t be the same because of her.
She will be so deeply missed and our hearts are with all mourning her absence. I hope her inspiration finds a kaleidoscope of ways to continue shining through us all.
