Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest
Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary
Shelly Winfrey is a neighbor and long-time friend of the Cle Elum Seven and has been sponsoring December 27th in memory of her father, Bill Clark, for the last three years.
Thank you for your generosity and thoughtfulness, Shelly, and for allowing us to celebrate the memory of your dad with your support of the sanctuary.
Burrito sends his love!
Hopefully you’ve watched the video (several times) of the chimps’ holiday party yesterday – it was a pretty amazing day for all of the chimpanzees and the humans who were here to celebrate with them.
The chimps’ friends really know what makes for a great party! A good 98% of the decorations, food, gifts, and blankets were donated from friends near and far.
I thought it would be fun to share some of the still photos from yesterday to deconstruct the party a bit and tell you more about the day.
The first thing to deconstruct is the party food. We are pretty strict about the chimps’ diet. The vast majority of what the chimps eat is fresh produce, supplemented with nuts, seeds, and a small amount of commercially-made “primate chow.” We do not give them food that has added sugar or salt, and we give them very little processed food other than the primate chow. We want the chimpanzees here to be as healthy as possible, so we see their diet as preventative health care.
A few times a year, for special occasions, we bend the rules just a little bit, though you still won’t see the chimps here eating candy. As you can tell from the food squeaks, they are pretty pleased with what we offer.
One thing that dawned on me when we had the Jungle Solstice party last week is that a big part of the chimps’ excitement is not necessarily what the food is, but the fact that we bring out plates for parties. It seems like such a small thing, but I think they have realized that paper plates = party, so and they get excited even if the food on the plates is what they would normally be served on a random day.
Their Christmas plates this year had baked potatoes, Brussels sprouts, and cut-up fresh pomegranate:
For the bending-the-rules food, we also included slices of Field Roast’s Celebration Roast:
The champagne flutes (another “hey, it’s a party” signal) were filled with slightly watered down non-alcoholic sparkling cranberry cider (no sugar added):
Kelsi made the drinks extra fancy by adding a few pomegranate arils to each glass:
The other breaking-the-rules food that’s become a tradition for the holiday party is dinner rolls. Many of the chimpanzees go straight for the rolls, leaving some of the other food on the plate as seconds. That’s what sneaky Missy was “stealing” in the video from yesterday:
Negra is possibly the biggest fan of bread that I know, so she is always pleased to have this extra special treat. Knowing that, some cut up dinner roll pieces were placed in one of her favorite spots up on the catwalk:
The prize pineapple top that you saw Jody with in the video was a leftover from their breakfast. Jody made sure it was okay with Jamie before she took it upstairs to eat in private:
So, what about the presents?! Well, the trick with presents for most chimpanzees is to hide a bit of food in them. So, most of the bags and little boxes you saw had a nut or some other small not-breaking-the-rules food.
That’s not to say that the chimpanzees don’t appreciate new non-food objects, it’s just that food tends to be more universally exciting.
Jamie was very pleased to get two new pairs of boots yesterday, in addition to several books:
And Foxie got so many new dolls that I lost count. I don’t have a good photo of her with a new doll – suffice it to say that she was very happy with all of them! She handed me a new Strawberry Shortcake doll first thing this morning and then did some playful spins.
Today, the chimpanzees are resting up after the big celebration. Here’s Jamie, sound asleep, using her new boots as a pillow, with one of her favorite new books by her side:
The humans had a lot of clean up to do this morning after that extravaganza, which we did quite happily!
And Katelyn is busy in the office preparing thank you notes for all of the generous friends of the chimpanzees. Luckily part-time office cat LouLou is honing her computer skills to lend Katelyn a hand.
So, if you get an email that says, “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?????????????????????” from Katelyn, you’ll know why.
Thank you to everyone who made yesterday, today, and all of the days of 2017 so very wonderful for all of the primates at the sanctuary!
Our third sponsor for today’s day of sanctuary is Jean Bengston, who gave the gift of sponsoring Christmas in honor of Julie and Rob Sweet.
And what a Christmas it has been! Thank you to everyone who sponsored today and contributed to the fun of the party, including Patti and Chad who volunteered and helped set up the party this morning!
Molly Adrian is the second sponsor of today’s day of sanctuary for the chimpanzees! She is honoring her mother, Nancy Hedlund and shared this message:
“Christmas Day – my mom would love nothing more than to gift a day of happiness and nourishment for these beautiful chimpanzees. Merry Christmas!!”
Happiness and nourishment abound today!
Here is a little preview of their Christmas so far, with more to come, of course!
This photo pretty much sums up Christmas for Jamie. We’ve been talking about how she is the consummate consumer – she loves things! The more, the better. Her friends really came through for her and the other chimps today and sent an abundance of gifts and decorations for the party. So many, that we’ll be having a second party later this afternoon! Here is Jamie looking through one of her new boot books:
If you’ve been following the blog for a bit, you know that food is the biggest source of excitement for Burrito. So, he’s pretty much beside himself when the holidays roll around:
We’ve got a third sponsor-a-day coming up, and we’re working on the video of Party #1 right now. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!
Merry Christmas to all of those who celebrate, and happy Monday to those who don’t!
Today, as you can imagine, we have a lot of people who wanted to help celebrate the day with the chimpanzees.
Up first, continuing her years-long tradition, Laurel Hecht was the first to sponsor 12/25/17. It’s an extra-special day for Laurel because it is also her birthday.
So, big thanks to Laurel for sharing her love and celebration with the chimpanzees. Happy Birthday to you!
The chimpanzees will be having an all-day celebration today.
We’re getting the day started with a breakfast of fresh pineapple and oranges (and smoothie being served)
Hopefully that troll isn’t telling Foxie what her presents are…
We (finally) got a sprinkling of snow yesterday, so Anna and volunteer Becca filled up some buckets with the fluffy stuff and put them in the front rooms for the chimpanzees after we had finished cleaning.
It’s a gorgeous day today in central Washington. The sun came out early and has been shining bright all day. The snow on the ground catches the light and makes it look like the world is winking and sparkling.
For Annie, today was the kind of day that you take a bucket of snow up to a window on the catwalk and enjoy the cold treat with the sun streaming onto your face.
And when her friends Jody and then Missy came by, she decided there was plenty to share:
Happy eve of Christmas Eve, everyone!
One of the biggest lessons I have learned about taking care of chimpanzees in a sanctuary setting is that there is no “one size fits all” approach to care. There are, however, very important things that we can offer as caregivers and sanctuary managers, and they include a knowledge of chimpanzees as a species, lots of different options, encouragement, patience, and a willingness to treat the chimpanzees as the individuals who they are.
We learn what they need and want by getting to know who they are, and they continue to surprise us by growing into their more autonomous lives at the sanctuary in different ways; ways we never would have predicted.
I see the job of the humans as facilitators of the chimpanzees’ own discoveries into what makes them most happy and satisfied. We then observe and learn, delighting in the witnessing of the chimps’ discoveries, and that feeds into the next choices that we present. It’s like an infinite loop of happiness. And you are part of it too. When I think about it, many, perhaps even most, of the blog posts that we share with you are about this process.
I’ve talked to several people in the last couple of months who say things like, “The sanctuary’s blog posts are the highlight of my day. They make me so happy!” That, in turn, makes me happy, creating another loop.
It’s a very special experience to share the lives of these chimpanzees with you, and learning about the impact it has on your lives makes it infinitely more special.
This is what I was thinking about when I was out walking with Jamie and Missy this morning and I saw that Burrito had come outside to join them. Today, he was carrying a small orange scrub brush in his mouth.
I was thinking about how it wasn’t that long ago that having Burrito join in a walk around the hill was a new experience for all of us, but now it’s a regular occurrence.
I was thinking about J.B. telling me last night that Burrito got his attention in the middle of the day yesterday to do a perimeter walk – just the guys! – with boss Jamie remaining in the chimp house.
All of this is not to paint a portrait of everyone happy all of the time, of course. All of us, Burrito included, have our moments of sadness, anxiety, anger, etc., but these infinite loops of happiness are always running in the background of our lives, and that makes the not-so-great moments dull and fade maybe just a little bit quicker.
