Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

Hope. Love. Home. Sanctuary

Jackie

Chimps’ Choice- “Once Again” Peanut Butter

by

The Cle Elum Seven absolutely love peanut butter. We have traditionally purchased large containers of Adam’s Peanut Butter at Costco, however we are trying to steer clear of salt, especially with Burrito’s heart condition. So, we found a new (to me) brand that comes in 9lb tubs on Amazon called “Once Again”. I’ve added it to our wishlist. Even though we use peanut butter for all sorts of things, I think 9lbs will last us a pretty long time so we only need one tub for now but I thought I would make it a challenge for you! The first person to purchase it will receive a special package from me, which will include a photo of the chimp of your choice. Check out our wishlist (http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/ref=wish_list) and be sure to email me ([email protected]) to let me know your chimp preference!

Annie licking peanut butter out of a kong, one of the Cle Elum Seven’s favorite activities:
Annie

Jamie licking the peanut butter off of a celery stick:
Jamie

Missy using a tool to fish peanut butter out of the tubes in the treat rock:
Missy

Jody cleaning the last bit out of a plastic peanut butter jar:
Jody

Messing with the GoPro

by

As Diana mentioned yesterday, the weather has (off and on) been incredible the last week or so! Yesterday it actually got up to 60 degrees (!) but then there was snow on the ground this morning. So, we really have to take advantage of good weather when we have it. J.B. and Diana set up a forage on Young’s Hill yesterday and put the GoPro camera in it’s mount. As I was reviewing the footage this morning, I discovered Foxie and Jamie had a little post-forage project – to get to the bottom of this whole GoPro thing, once and for all!

Getting Cozy in the Cabin

by

Today, Jody was caught lounging in the cabin on the hill. It’s great to see her so comfortable in there! We may have built it with Negra in mind (and nothing made me happier than seeing her in it a couple weeks ago!), but I suspect that with some more warmth, extra sunshine, straw, and a few extra blankets (or maybe a few 100 extra blankets), we’ll be seeing a lot more of Jody nesting in the cabin over the next few months!

Jody in the cabin

Jody in the cabin

Jody in the cabin

A love letter to the chimps

by

If you are on our Facebook page, you probably saw that the chimps received a love letter on Friday from my 11-year-old neighbor, Tiffany. It truly made my day! Tiffany is a very special kid and the comments on my Facebook post just made it all the more special – “Sounds like a future Jane Goodall”, “Our children are our future”, “Children are the hope for non-human animals” – I am just thrilled that the Cle Elum Seven have inspired yet another future animal advocate! The chimps are lucky to have you in their corner.

letter to the chimps

letter to the chimps

And with a face like Burrito’s, it’s easy to see how he could inspire:

Burrito

Funny faces

by

Foxie loves mirrors and tends to immediately make funny faces at herself whenever she sees her reflection (one of my favorite videos of Foxie in a mirror is this one from 2009– check it out). She’s been particularly interested in mirrors lately because she has an injury on her forehead that she has been inspecting, so today I put out a few extra mirrors so she could check herself out if she wanted to. Not to my surprise, she did just that – only she wasn’t as interested in looking at her wound as she was making funny faces at herself.

Foxie with a mirror

Foxie with a mirror

Foxie with a mirror

Foxie with a mirror

Foxie with a mirror

Foxie

Nightbag Rituals

by

As Diana mentioned yesterday, she got some photos of the chimps enjoying their nightbags last Friday. As most of you know, Negra is the biggest fan of nightbags and almost seems to live for that time of the day. But the reality is, nightbags are truly loved by all. Each one of the chimps has their own ritual with nightbags. If we serve them in the greenhouse, everyone immediately scatters when they get their bag, heading off to a safe and more isolated location. Nightbags are a prized possession, so everyone is careful to ensure their bag is not stolen by someone. Jamie immediately goes up to the window sill, tears it open and dumps everything out so she can pick through what she wants to eat first. Negra doesn’t tend to move away very far, as eating it is her number one top priority (not to mention I think she knows no one would steal her nightbag!). She tears a hole in the bag and munches on it through the hole, allowing nut shells and empty sunflower seeds to collect on her belly. Jody tends to lay down to eat hers, usually tearing it open but leaving it neatly on the bag while she picks through the mix with her lips. Annie usually bites a hole in her bag and holds it like a cereal bowl. Foxie’s method is pretty similar to Annie’s, only she usually dumps small amounts in her hand and sorts through it there:

Foxie

Missy usually tears it open and spreads it open like Jamie- a perk of being a more dominant chimp, in that you don’t have to worry about people stealing it as much so dumping it out isn’t as big of a deal. And then you get to go through and eat each nut and seed at your leisure:
Missy

Burrito uses the cereal bowl method as well though I think his favorite part is going back and sorting through people’s abandoned scraps!
Burrito

Getting some fresh air

by

Normally after cleaning the playroom, we put out a small forage of nuts, seeds, dried fruit or some combination before letting the chimps back in there. They most certainly know our routine so as we start to wrap things up in there, the chimps start checking in with us to see what the forage is going to be. They watch us scatter what ever it is and (depending on how exciting it is) they begin to food grunt (and hopefully food squeak) in anticipation. Today, no one was around as we scattered the forage – not even Burrito, who is always interested to see what the forage will be! We locked everything up and I opened the door for the chimps – nothing.

But as it turns out, the absence of chimps wasn’t because they just weren’t hungry or interested in the forage – it’s because all seven chimps were out on Young’s Hill! No one had even seemed to notice that I had opened the playroom back up for them. I walked outside to see what they were up to and Burrito and Jody were roaming the very top of the hill, Annie and Missy were wrestling on the shaky bridge, Jamie was walking around in the bamboo with a boot, Foxie was on top of one of the climbing structures playing with a pink-haired troll doll, and Negra was simply sitting by the log structure.

With it being as cold as it has been, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Negra just “hanging out” out there. She’s gone out a few times since the snow melted but not for very long. This morning, it was warm and sunny enough that she just sat down and took in some fresh air.

As J.B. mentioned the other day, we often can’t get photos of Negra on the hill because she “doesn’t deal with the paparazzi” as well as the others, but today, for what ever reason, she didn’t seem to mind one bit. She sat there for a good 15 minutes with me snapping photos. I guess all that fresh air and sunshine made dealing with “obnoxious” photographers trying to get a glimpse of the Queen worth it.

web Negra profile sit on YH IMG_3164

web Negra look down driveway sit on YH IMG_3167

Looking down the driveway:
web Negra look down driveway sit on YH IMG_3166

web Negra look towards valley sit on YH IMG_3168

web Negra arms crossed look at camera sit on YH IMG_3170