Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Today was a little warmer than the past few days, and the snow is starting to melt a bit. When we opened up Young’s Hill, the chimps all ran out to get a bite of snow. It’s still pretty cold out though, so they didn’t stay too long. Here’s some pictures from this afternoon:
Annie:
Today marks the two month anniversary of the opening of Young’s Hill. Coincidentally it was also volunteer Katelyn’s birthday, so we did have a small party for the chimps. It was only later that I realized we could have also considered it the anniversary party! Here’s some (hopefully) never before seen pictures of the first day on Young’s Hill. I can’t believe it has already been two months! In just that short amount of time we’ve seen the chimps grow more and more comfortable on the hill, and I expect that when next summer rolls around (and all the snow is gone!) they will stay for hours and hours basking in the sun and looking up at the open sky. I watched the KOMO news story again today, and it still warms my heart. It was such an amazing, emotional, and remarkable day.
Although snow is really tasty, it’s getting pretty cold in Cle Elum so the chimps are happy to stay warm in the greenhouse.
Sometimes, though, snow is just good enough to risk getting a little cold to reach for it.
Today is sort of rainy out, so we wanted to enrich the chimpanzees with some indoor activity. Sometimes we play the TV for them, which some folks seem to really enjoy. We also know that the chimps like to watch themselves in mirrors, so I thought they might be interested in “Photo Booth,” which is an App on the iPad (and it’s also on most Mac computers) where you can take pictures of yourself. Foxie and Burrito seemed to think it was pretty cool, and I’m glad we were able to come up with some fun rainy day enrichment.
I put out a lettuce forage and everybody—even Negra and Burrito—spent some time on the hill today, despite it being pretty cold out. I didn’t get a photo of everyone, but here’s a few shots from this afternoon:
The CSNW chimps have a love/hate relationship with stuffed animals. Sometimes they like to tear apart stuffed animals—maybe to use their stuffing for bedding, or just for fun. Other times, they like to play with them or even cuddle with them, like Jamie did the other day:
