Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Anna

Welcome Anthony!

by

This week we welcomed our newest staff member Anthony to the sanctuary! Elizabeth, our longtime volunteer coordinator and caregiver is transitioning out of her job at the sanctuary in the coming weeks as she pursues a dream career as a librarian. We’re so fortunate we get to keep her around as a volunteer! This left an opening at the sanctuary for a part-time caregiver position, and that’s where Anthony comes in.

Anthony graduated from Central Washington University in 2017 with a Masters in Primate Behavior and a Certificate in Captive Primate Care. He also interned and volunteered at Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW during his time at CWU. After finishing his education, he worked at Project Chimps, a chimpanzee sanctuary in Northern Georgia as a caregiver. He returns to the Pacific Northwest with lots of primate care experience and it’s great to have him back! Anthony will get to introduce himself to the blog community in a couple of weeks as he continues his training in the Chimp House. In the meantime, Burrito is keeping him busy with lots of rowdy games of chase!

Organizing!

by

As the chimps lounged around…

The humans did some organizing! We’ve got just a couple of months to get ready for the arrival of our newest sanctuary members. If you haven’t heard the BIG news yet, make sure to check out this blog post!

We recently received a new fridge from a generous donor/volunteer. Getting a new fridge in the building is always a challenge, luckily we have lots of willing volunteers to lend a hand or two.

The second fridge took its place in the kitchen across from the other fridge. We will have some more mouths to feed here pretty soon!

And the enrichment moved out of the kitchen and into our new laundry/enrichment room!

The only thing we’re missing in this space is a new washer/dryer for our second group of chimps… If you’re interested in becoming our washer/dryer donor angel, you can find the set we are looking for on our Amazon Wishlist.

Memories for Monday

by

Every now and then I like to look back and see what life was like at the sanctuary on this same day in CSNW history.

On June 17th in 2008, the chimpanzees had just arrived in their new home in Cle Elum. Diana took this haunting photo of Jody that we can now compare to this photo of her today. What a difference sanctuary life has made!

On June 17th in 2009, Diana shared a couple stories about Foxie and how her life had changed after one year in sanctuary.

On June 17th in 2010, big beautiful nests were all the rage!

On June 17th in 2011, JB and volunteers were in the throes of building Young’s Hill.

On June 17th in 2012, Burrito played a silly game (some things never change).

On June 17th in 2013, we mentioned our Amazon wishlist. This list is still up and running and today it includes some exciting new items such as our washer and dryer that we are going to need in our expansion!

On June 17th in 2014, Missy got a good view from the top of the hill!

On June 17th in 2015, Katelyn wrote about a private moment of friendship between Foxie and Burrito.

On June 17th in 2016, JB took us for a trip down Memory Lane.

On June 17th in 2017, it was a perfectly ordinary day 🙂

And last year on June 17th, we threw the chimps a slightly belated 10 year Anniversary party!

We can’t wait to see what will come our way next year!

Negra’s 46th birthday party!

by

Today we celebrated Negra’s 46th birthday and the 11th anniversary of the chimpanzees’ arrival to their sanctuary. Since it’s Negra’s (honorary) birthday, we geared the day towards the things she truly loves. The morning started with a beautiful brunch featuring buckwheat carrot waffles (with a peanut butter drizzle) made with love by volunteer caregiver Patti, hard boiled eggs from my happy chickens, fresh roses and juicy plums!

I think this video of the waffle feast pretty much sums up how absolutely delighted Negra was.

Then for lunch we set out a giant lettuce forage. It’s really nice that simple things like a whole head of lettuce can still be so exciting to the chimps (even after 11 years!!).
Everyone enjoyed their lunch, but Jamie really wowed us (and not just because she collected a bunch of lettuce). It had more to do with what she decided to do after she filled her hands and mouth:

We were all in awe as she crossed an entire tightrope like this:

Here’s to many more years of waffle and lettuce celebrations!

A big week!

by

We’ve got a big week full of excitement planned here at the sanctuary. This Thursday we are celebrating the 11th year of the chimpanzees’ arrival at their forever home in Cle Elum. Of course, the chimps’ party planning committee is working hard to make the day special for them!

Here’s Jody during last year’s party forage:

We also celebrate Negra’s honorary birthday on the same day (June 13th). This week she will be turning 46 years old!

As if this wasn’t already enough excitement, staff, volunteers and many amazing supporters are all ending the week together in Seattle at HOOT! our big gala fundraising celebration. There are just a few tickets left in case you haven’t purchased yours yet. This year everyone gets to participate in the big day, even if you can’t make it to the actual venue. First, you can start by previewing what’s going to be up for auction here. Then, starting tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., you can get involved in the auction and start pre-bidding online!

So much to celebrate, we can’t hardly wait!