Today is Annie’s 43rd Birthday! We are so fortunate to know Annie – she is a sweet, playful, and loyal friend to humans and non-humans. We celebrated her today with a fun forage full of veggies, chow, roasted onions, and smoothie in the greenhouse and Young’s Hill. Annie also really LOVES kale especially from our garden. It was quite the party!
Annie standing bipedally while foraging on the hill:
Annie found some delicious kale from our garden:
Burrito scored a few presents:
Burrito (wonder what he found inside):
Annie enjoying a plate of corn and broccoli with a side of socks:
Jamie drinking smoothie:
Jamie unwrapping a present:
Jamie holding some boots in her pelvic pocket:
Negra basking in the sun and foraging:
Birthday girl (Annie):
Missy:
Jody eating some leeks from our garden:
Annie enjoying her kale:
Foxie eating chow:
Annie found one last plate:
They sure enjoy their parties!
Those pictures are wonderful. It makes me so happy to see the chimps enjoying themselves. They all look so content and relaxed. Happy happy birthday dear sweet Annie XOXO
U guys throw the BESTEST parties!! So happy for you all to share such wonderful times ~ especially with all that’s going on in the world!! Good to take time to enjoy each and every moment!! BRAVO! WELL DONE!! Hugs to you all……
It is such fun seeing everyone enjoying the celebration! Every year Annie blossoms a little bit more. My birthday wish for the lovely Annie is to bloom and never wither. I love you. Happy Birthday Annie!!
Happy Birthday Annie! So happy seeing you and your family having fun! … Wonderful photos thank you for sharing this and all the experiences you share provide to these babies. I’m so far behind in posts. I have it in my mental to do list to spend the whole day just going through all your posts and catching up I love you guys so much! thank you again!
What a fun celebration for all! Happy Birthday Beautiful Annie! May your heart sing with joy and happiness abound! I love sweet lady????
Your beautiful pictures sent me weeping. There is a quiet contentment to all of the pictures. )Although I expect there might have been at least raucous spell in the day! They wouldn’t be chimps without it.) But they are all so beautiful and so alive and vital; you can see it in their eyes. Thank you for sharing the party, and for giving sweet Annie her own very special day.
Annie enjoying a plate of corn with “a side of socks” — that really cracked me up. Burito seems to love to shake package — I seem to remember him doing that before at a Christmas party.
I hope that Annie enjoyed her birthday yesterday. As with her companions, her mere existence is a gift. What beautiful creatures Annie and her neighbors are.
I think it’s srsly cool that Annie chose to celebrate her birthday in solitude. I remember just a few years ago when turning 30, I had no one to celebrate it with, so I went to my favourite restaurant and got take-out. That way I could come home and enjoy it with a lap full of kittehs. But the highlight was stopping by Walmart on my way home that day, and purchasing a Black & Decker cordless drill. The ex- kept the other one, and the only tools I owned was my set of pink screwdrivers/hammers. I quickly learned how invaluable a drill was to a single lady.
I use that drill more often than I thought, but that isn’t what makes it cool. It’s the fact that I got it to celebrate ME. I think every woman at one point in her life wants to be alone when she marks the passing of another year. We seem to get all surprised when chimps act like us, but this is just another example of how that happens, and I think it’s srsly cool.
Kelsi, you’re the perfect one to ask this question of since you’re relatively new.
I notice you mentioned the phrase *pelvic pocket*. I know that usually in places like this sanctuary the volunteers who work there are either interns, gaining college credit for a related major, or simply someone who may want to work there as full-time staff one day (probably because they’ve held a life-long dream of getting poo flung directly in their faces since childhood [because they had an older brother, would be my guess, but I digress and have now nested myself out of existence 😀 ]).
Forgive me for not recalling specifics of your first post in which you identified yourself and where you probably mentioned this. But how extensive *was* your training here? Did you already know chimp physiology, or was this term indicative of training you received at CSNW? It’s just made me curious of their training in general. That’s a pretty specific term that they may or may not require volunteers to know. I guess it would also depend on the level of employment you also hope to hold there one day.
If you could talk a little about that I’d be grateful.
Cheers.
Hi Carla René! I have a bachelors degree in Psychology/Primate Behavior & Ecology. I have worked and studied with chimpanzees for almost 8 years. Before Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest I worked at another sanctuary called the Fauna Foundation. As for CSNW training it is pretty extensive for volunteers and staff. We have different levels of training for volunteers and interns to ensure that the chimpanzees are safe and humans as well!
Pelvic pocket is a term that we use often. The chimps will tuck things there for safe keeping or put an object there so they can have their hands free. For example, Foxie will put troll dolls in her pelvic pocket and then quadrupedally walk away.