Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Annie’s birthday is tomorrow! We received this lovely birthday card in her honor from Paige Sobran:
It reads: May you be surrounded by friends, love and joy on your birthday… and green onions, trolls, blankets. From someone who checks for blog updates every day before I check my email.
Thanks, Paige! We’ll be celebrating Annie’s birthday in full force tomorrow—Diana and I have already laid out plans for a birthday “cake” (made from fruits and veggies) with all of Annie’s favorites!
Annie’s birthday is Saturday, so I thought I’d share a picture taken from when the raceway to Young’s Hill was built:
When I first met the Cle Elum Seven in 2008, I was working at the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute (CHCI) in Ellensburg, just 20 miles away from CSNW. I was going to grad school studying the chimps’ use of sign language (which coincidentally, all of the CSNW staff members did before me as well).
I remember when I first saw Annie, I immediately thought she looked like Washoe.
Washoe and Annie were both captured from Africa. Washoe originally was captured for NASA to be a space chimp, but she was too big and so she ended up in Reno, NV where she learned sign language. Washoe lived in a couple different places across two decades before she was given sanctuary at CHCI, but thankfully she was never used in invasive biomedical research. She was much luckier than Annie, who was taken from Africa and put straight into invasive research.
Regardless of their backgrounds, captivity is never ideal for a chimpanzee. We can’t ever make up for the amount of space they would normally have in the wild, but with the opening of Young’s Hill, Annie will have more space to roam than ever before since leaving Africa.
Today J.B., Colin, and Noah worked on some Young’s Hill trench-digging around the entire perimeter. Here’s J.B. using what I have been calling “the crazy chainsaw for the ground” machine (though it’s actually called a ditch witch).
Trench-digging is also do-able with a pick ax and shovel, though I imagine it’s pretty hard work! Here’s Colin and Noah workin’ hard:
… and hardly workin’
It’s really amazing to look through some old photos of when the chimps first arrived at the sanctuary. Their skin was so faded, they had so little hair, and they just seemed expressionless. Even after just a few months, we started to see some drastic changes. This post shows before and after pictures of Annie—with only about 3 months between. Well, I took a photo of Annie today sitting in the same exact spot as our “before” picture. It’s pretty striking how amazing she looks after 3 years in sanctuary.
Annie before (June 13, 2008)
Annie now (August 30, 2011)
We tend to get a lot of empty boxes around here at the sanctuary, and the other day Denice thought the chimps might enjoy this especially giant box. She was right, it turned out to be a lot of fun. Who knew a plain old leftover box could be so entertaining!
