Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Anna

What’s in a wadge?

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The chimpanzees all enjoy wadging fibrous materials in their bottom lips. When something is too tough or dry to eat, but has some flavor left in it, they make a chewed up ball by adding water and sucking out the juices through their teeth. It’s got to be pretty relaxing to finish a meal and kick back with a nice wadge.

Here are just a few popular wadging materials:
Bamboo (Annie):

Alfalfa cubes (Burrito):

Primate chow (Foxie):

Corn cob (Negra):

Pine needles (Jody):

Pineapple peel (Jamie):

Chow bag paper (Missy):

Fourth of July picnic

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Today we threw the chimps a Fourth of July picnic party on Young’s Hill! No picnic is complete without veggie hotdogs, corn on the cob, onion rings, gift bags of primate chow crumbs, shots of sparkling apple cider and fresh watermelon. We laid down a few patriotic picnic blankets and the lunch was thoroughly enjoyed by all!

Annie:

Jamie:

Burrito:

Missy:

Negra:

Jody:

Happy Fourth of July everybody!

Slooow day

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Something is in the air that’s making us all sleepy and lazy today.

Jamie took it easy on a slow walk this morning before she curled up in a nest to examine a book about mammals:

We set out a lunch forage today, but almost everyone had other plans indoors. Negra was the first (and only chimp) for a few moments on Young’s Hill. She had a big head start, so she collected at least five pieces of corn before anyone joined her.

Missy (right) watched the other chimps forage from the raceway by the greenhouse before she finally joined in. She met up with Annie (left) and they ate their lunch together in the fire hose hammock:

Here’s to leisurely Tuesdays!

Getting prepped!

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Exciting things are happening at the sanctuary! We are preparing to break ground on Phase 1 of our expansion plans! Today JB moved our temporary clinic/break room (AKA the Desert Fox travel trailer) just outside the perimeter fence to make way for the construction that is imminent! We also have a special groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for Saturday and a date set for construction to begin early next month! We will post a more thorough blog update soon, with the details of what’s to come with our expansion, but for now enjoy these photos from today.

Ellie the elk was on hand to supervise the trailer moving process:

Annie, Negra, and Foxie investigating the new empty space in their view:

Here’s what their view looks like now! Next up, this shelter is going to be transplanted to a new location at the sanctuary. Stay tuned!

Evening adventure

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Last night, like so many other summer evenings, Jamie and friends decided to keep the day going past dinner time, when staff might ordinarily close up and say good night. This is a pretty common practice for Jamie during the summer months, to want to keep the door open to Young’s Hill for more perimeter walks in cooler weather (and who can blame her?!). The chimps have access to the rest of their enclosure, including the open air green house, all night, but before staff can finish for the day, we need to close off Young’s Hill and make sure everyone is safe and secure at the sanctuary.

Yesterday Jamie (who was working on enrichment food puzzles in the playroom), was assisted by Foxie, who ran to block the doorway when we went to close the door to the hill. As a sanctuary, the chimps ultimately get to make the decisions on where they want to be at any given time, so we humans just needed to wait and see where the evening would take us. With the decision made on keeping the door open, Jamie and I set out for our first perimeter patrol of the evening (with me on the other side of the fence of course). As we walked our final leg of Young’s Hill together, Annie let us know with raucous alarm calls, that a snake had been spotted on the hill. She was so loud and intent that her alarm calls echoed off the neighboring hillside and amped her up even more!

Jamie and Foxie were first on the scene to look for the snake. Jamie searched through the grass and must have seen it, because she screamed and needed a lot of reassurance from the other chimps. She went from browsing through the grass, to climbing the structures and avoiding touching the ground so she could keep an eye out for it.

Here’s the boss keeping a lookout last night:

And some of her agile maneuvering to stay out of the grass:

The snake seemed to change Jamie’s opinion of spending a lot more time outside, because she soon decided she’d rather fish out peanut butter from enrichment tubes than keep up the search. Never fear, the hunt resumed today as she has returned to the area several more times to look for the offending creature. For now, the coast seems to be clear!

Drifting into summer

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Today is the last day of spring, but it definitely feels like we are already deep into the summer months. We aren’t sure just what to do with ourselves in all this heat! The only sure sign that spring hasn’t quite left, is that the grass still has its lovely green pigment, and Negra keeps making her way outdoors to eat the fresh vegetation on Young’s Hill. With the end of spring, comes peak grass height! This morning the chimps disappeared into their 2 acre forest of grass!

Queen Negra:

Missy the champion food puzzler

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Last week Jamie decided to keep walking laps around Young’s Hill with Diana, rather than investigate (and hoard) the evening’s enrichment food puzzle. In Jamie’s absence, some of the other chimps saw their opportunity to take on multiple frozen water bottle puzzles, most notably Missy. As you might notice, Missy is secretly an enrichment puzzle super star!